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LES TROIS ROIS 



BY 



EGBERT P. KEVIN, 

AUTHOK OF " BLACK-ROBES," "TRACKS OF A TRAVELER," &C. 



} \ 




PITTSBUBG: 

JOS. EICHBAUM & CO. 

1888. 



lo h'^'Z 



COPYRIGST 

1888 

BY 
ROBEET P. NeVIN. 



PEEFAOE. 



The writing of Les Trois Rois was undertaken with a 
view to its appearance as a Magazine article. The subject, 
however, grew so in the sketching, in face of the desire to 
keep it within compass, that, completed, it was found to be 
quite out of size for the setting for which it was intended. 
It was then decided to present it in its present shape. 

Books treating of the industries of Pittsburg have already 
been written, but they consist, all, so exclusively of 'Facts, 
sir ; nothing but Facts,' that only they, the figuring few like 
Gradgrind, ' with a rule and a pair of scales, and the multi- 
plication table always in their pocket,' are willing to under- 
take their reading. The unciphering many have no relish 
for that sort of entertainment. They do not object exactly 
to Facts, but prefer that they should be presented in some 
form other, and less uninviting, than in the naked — with 
something of fair flesh about them, rather than in the bare 
skeleton. To meet that preference— to show in such a light 
as to invite the popular eye, and so inform the popular 
mind of what with its forces and resources Pittsburg is — is 
what has been here attempted. 

The idea of adapting the legend of the Three Kings of 
Cologne to the purpose in hand, was taken up, not to give pre- 



iv PREFACE. 

ferred prominence to persons, but because it afforded a con- 
venient device for grouping naturally and consistently in a 
one picture the three leading, but diverse, subjects treated 
of ; and, besides, as calculated to excite that livelier interest 
always felt when the individual figures in a narrative. 

The companion pieces to 'Les Trois Eois,' 'Tom the 
Tinker' and 'Stephen C. Foster and Negro Minstrelsy,' ap- 
peared originally, the latter in the Atlantic Monthly, and the 
former in Lippincotfs Magazine, by kind permission of whose 
publishers they are here reproduced. 

Vine-acre, February, 1888. 



LES TKOIS ROIS 



I. 

TN the arms of the goodly City of Cologne one 
may see emblazoned the heraldic device, in 
right stately display, of Three Crowns. How 
the fair old town came to appropriate that loftily- 
regal bearing, the stranger within its gates, curious 
concerning the mystery, need not seek far to be 
informed, since the legend that reveals it hangs 
on the tongue, tickling to tell it, of whomsoever 
among its denizens he may happen to encounter, 
on the streets or at their corners. Thus : — 

When our Lord was born, certain Magi, as 
saith the Gospel, saw his Star in the East and 
came to worship him. They were Kings, as it 
had been prophesied they should be, these Magi ; 
^' Kings of Tarshish and of the Isles ; Kings of 
Sheba and of Seba,'' and worthy therefore of 
honorable respect — a respect second only to that 
to which they were entitled by reason of the still 
nobler distinction declared of them, that they 
2 



6 LES TEOIS KOIS. 

were ' Wise Men/ Coining down, these Wise 
Men, to Bethlehem to worship, they in turn — so 
is it that reverence begets reverence — themselves 
were worshiped. Before them, living, people 
bowed the knee in honoring homage ; and when 
in time they died, as Kings, even though Magi, 
must, they sainted them and held them sacred. 

Years later, when good Christians began to 
learn the value of that sort of property, their 
bones, disinterred, were carefully conveyed to 
Milan. A long repose awaited them there, but it 
was broken at length when Barbarossa came down 
and laid siege to the city. Then, that harm 
should by no chance befall them there, they were 
taken up and carried to Cologne. Here in the 
old Cathedral built by Charlemagne, were they 
finally planted, and here, happily for the city, 
have they remained undisturbed ever since. 
Happily for the city, for marvelous truly, and 
manifold, have been the fruits that have grown 
out of that planting. Was the old Cathedral 
caught on an unlucky day, once, and consumed 
by fire ? The bodies of its Saints lay where they 
lay, amid the heat and the blaze of the burning, 
but, like as with the Three Children of Judea put 
through a like trial, ^ the flames did not kindle 



LES TKOIS KOIS. 7 

upon them/ and out they came whole and sound, 
tlieir wonder-working virtues quickened, not 
quenched, by the ordeal. As was presently to be 
made appear; for while the town's people were 
sorrowing still, and sighing, over their great mis- 
fortune, lo ! a miracle! Up from out the ruins 
of the old Cathedral began to rise the walls, 
planted wide, and deep, and strong, of a new ! It 
was of massive, magnificent design, the new, and 
took long time in finishing into shape — so long 
time that but for the saving presence of its Saints, 
the foundations of it would have crumbled into 
ruins ere yet the top-stones of its towers were 
laid. But — blessings on their bones ! — Magi may 
build slow, but they build surpassing sure ; and 
there, in its place perfect now, at last, it stands, a 
wonder to gaze at and admire ; of its kind and in 
its order, in all the wide world without an equal. 
Alone, this signal proof of favor, so generously 
bestowed, might have established for the Saints a 
full title to popular gratitude, but having begun, 
it was with no purpose to let cease to their work. 
Long as the City cared for their bones the Saints 
would care for the City. As they did ; not spar- 
ingly, but bountifully, and with a liberal concern 
— which was duly appreciated — for its secular, as 



8 LES TKOIS BOIS. 

well as its spiritual advantage. Thus, while 
hallowed, and hallowing, relics — of Theophania, 
say, and of St. Gereon, and of the Eleven Thou- 
sand Virgins — with sanctuaries befitting in which 
to enshrine them, multiplied, at even pace grew 
and increased the resources of traffic; so that soon, 
commensurate with the fame of its altars became 
the fame of its wares — its snuff and its wax, its 
soap and its sugar, and — precious above all — its 
water. And so it came to pass that the hearts of 
the people leaned with a warm affection towards 
the Wise Men, their patrons and protectors ; that 
pilgrims and merchants from far and near flocked 
in to do them duty — to buy and to pray, and that 
grace and gain, thus joining hands, have gone on 
since, prospering and to prosper together. And 
so it came to pass that the renown of the Magi — 
Gaspar, Melchior, Belthazar — was established ; 
their names rendered illustrious, and themselves 
destined to live on always, in proud and imposing 
distinction, as Les Trois Rois — the Three 
Kings of Cologne. 



As from my window I look out upon our city, 
amazed at the picture I see presented of it there, 



LES TROIS ROIS. 9 

as contrasted with its aspect, still remembered, of 
fifty years ago, I am reminded of this olden legend 
of the venerable town on the Rhine, and I wonder, 
is there not more of fact, after all, than of fancy 
in the story, and may not that which has been 
told of Cologne, be over again told, with a j ust, if 
not a juster, propriety, of Pittsbnrg? Have we 
not, too, our Bones of Wise Men — bones, more- 
over, not dry, nor bare, nor dead, like the bones 
of the Magi in the old Cathedral, but living, 
fresh in flesh, and with nerves and sinews to 
match ? And miracles ? — Why what are they, 
the marvelous most, the most amazing, that the 
canonized of Cologne, or for that matter, of any- 
where else in all Christendom, ever wrought, 
compared to the wonders worked, and working, 
in the mill of mills for such grist, down on our 
rivers here ? See the smoke, the flames, the 
vapor, rise, and roll, and swell, and mingling, 
risen, in colossal mass pile up against the clouds ! 
Hear, sounding out from the palled area below, 
the roar, the shrieks, the groans as of big she- 
Gorgons or Chimeras many, in the agonies of 
labor ; and up and down the rivers, and up and 
down their valleys, hear and see, the keels in fleets 
afloat, toil, groaning and striving, heavy-laden, 



10 LES TKOIS EOIS. 

through the water; and steaming engines with 
their long serpentine lengths of burdened trains 
behind^ rush hither-ward and hence-ward along 
the shores ! Miracles, aye ;— of which these sights 
and sounds are but the signs — the shadows and 
the echoes : shadows and echoes ; and yet, as in 
witness of superhuman endeavor at supernatural 
undertakings, and of successful, substantial 
achievement, the all-sufficient proofs. For they 
tell how Earth has been compelled, out of her 
secretest and strongest holds, to yield up her 
hoards of precious ores, and how the forces of 
Nature have been seized, subdued, its elements 
mastered, and* both harnessed into service — to 
reduce them, refine them and forge them into 
shape for use. 

Would you know from what beginnings — be- 
ginnings so unpromising, so commonplace — 
results so extraordinary have followed? — what 
the advances, the progresses, culminating in these 
wonders? and who the Gaspar, Melchior, Belt- 
hazar — the Wise Men — the Three Kings — the 
workers of these wonders ? Attend to what in 
days to come shall be told as the legend of our 
time, and learn. 



LES TROIS ROIS. 11 

When, a mere jumble of few, cheap huts, 
Pittsburg first found for itself a name and 
a place in the map of the land, it was pretty 
much like one of the brats newly-born on its 
premises — scrubby, squalid, and generally of 
most unpromising appearance. Bantling of the 
old Fort, whose name by right of parentage 
it bears, the nursing it received was nothing to 
speak of; for the Fort, on its last legs, had quite 
as much of a contract on hand as it could manaw, 
to take care of itself. But for all that — perhaps 
the better for all that — the bantling grew, up 
through the stages of crawling, cutting of teeth, 
Aveaning, until, its period of youngster-hood well 
entered, and left an orphan, — the old Fort done 
for and gone to rot, — it was forced to fall back on 
its own resources for a living. 

Casting round for an occupation, the little town 
hit upon one, perhaps to its choice, perhaps not ; 
but which, since it wore a favorable aspect, 
and particularly as it seemed to be about the 
only available in offering, it made haste to 
adopt. 

Settlements had been started at different neigh- 
boring points in Western Pennsylvania, as well 
as in Kentucky and Tennessee, the last-mentioned 



12 LES TROIS ROIS. 

somewhat remote bat approachable by means of 
the floating facilities afforded by the Ohio River. 
Their fertile lands contributed plentifully to the 
support and comfort of these communities. They 
had their corn and their meat in abundance to 
eat ; their home-woven flax and wool to wear ; 
and their wine, or a liquor still more generous in 
lieu thereof, wherewithal, like unto the wine of 
Lebanon of old, to solace the elders and to make 
the young men cheerful. 

But the best of good things in having never 
sates the desire, always craving, after good things 
still better. Their tables and wardrobes furnished 
to fulness with the necessaries of life, a longing 
sprang up for its luxuries. Out of the sparings, 
over enough for home consumption, of what they 
grew and what the wilds around them afforded, 
might not a trade be opened and exchanges made 
for the coveted goods in the markets of the East? 
The little town caught at the suggestion, and pro- 
ceeded to put it in execution. It had found a 
calling and would make the most of it. The 
business, with its, at first, limited possibilities of 
patronage, had of course to be conducted accord- 
ingly — on as cheap a plan, and with as close an 
eye to economy, as might be. Camels had been 



LES TROIS ROIS. 13 

tried and approved as carriers in another East. 
True, these ''Ships of the Desert" were not at 
command here, but Schooners of the Wilderness 
— hacks of back-woods breed, " hollow pampered '^ 
but hardy, — were, and the Pack-horse, as meeting 
the conditions needed, became the chosen vessel 
of transportation. 

Outward bound, the lading, in this commercial 
enterprise, consisted of skins, furs, whisky, bees- 
wax, herbs medicinal, such as ginseng, snake-root; 
and petroleum, held in high esteem as a specific 
for head -ache, tooth-ache, rheumatism, small-pox, 
and '' in demand among white people," as says 
Loskiel, ''at four guineas a quart." The bales 
for return trips were made up of bar-iron for 
horse-shoes, gun-powder, lead, salt, knives, pots, 
calicoes, dimities and such -like sundries— some- 
times, rarely, in precious parcels for bridal wear 
at marryings — silks. The route, from start to 
terminus, was a long, difficult and somewhat 
perilous one. Mountains were to be climbed; 
dark gorges threaded; floods forded; morasses, 
tough and deep with mire, gone through ; storms 
encountered; with, along, across and through 
them all, a narrow, ill-defined trail only, to offer 
footing and point out the way. There were no 



14 LES TROIS ROIS. 

ions to lend accommodation to man or beast. 
Under tents of chestnut or pine-trees, pitched 
and standing in great camps all along the line, 
shelter as needed was found, with, for rest and for 
sleep, ready laid, couches of leaves and pillows of 
mosses. 

The pack-horseman carried with him his own 
needed supplies of provender — corn, ground for 
himself, and in the grain for his cattle. When he 
would add meat to his fare, he had but to look, 
out of the horned herd that ran wild in the 
woods, to select a victim, and with his rifle bring 
him down. The rifle was an item of furniture 
indispensable not only for such use, but as a means 
of defence against robbers, by whom he was not 
infrequently waylaid; robbers bold in daring, 
desperate in action, (or ballads lie that tell of 
them) and whom none, however defiant, cared, 
except upon compulsion, to encounter. Twenty- 
five miles to the day was the average rate of 
travel, so that two weeks, exactly, were required 
to cover the three hundred and fifty between 
Pittsburg and Philadelphia — counting Sundays 
in, that is; and it has sorrowingly to be confessed 
that, passed beyond sound of the church-going 
bell, our fathers were not as precise to remember 



LES TROIS EOIS. 15 

the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as Presbyterians, 
true to their catechism, should have been. * 

These, and many other such as these, difficulties 
and drawbacks in the pack-horse enterprise had 
to be met, but it was carried on in spite of them. 
It was found to be a paying business; moderately 
so at first, but growing in profit faster and faster 
with every fresh season's prosecution of it. Old 
settlements widened as the years went on ; new 
ones were planted; homes increased numerously 
— more numerously the families that inhabited 
them; clearings multiplied; like as grain ready 
for the harvest before the scythe of the reaper, so 
at edge of the steel of the axe-man, swath by 
swath, in steady mowing, fell the statelier crop in 
the vaster field of the forest. The barns of the 
farmers were filled with the produce of their 
lands, their folds with sheep, and the stalls of 
their stables with cattle. They waxed fat, and, 
as against their hitherto close limitings of self- 

* And yet caution had to be observed in such desecrations 
of the day. George Nixon and Philip Bradley having too 
boldly ventured, once, to pass through Hannas Town, were 
arrested "for Breaking Sunday by following their ordinary 
employment of driving pack-horses," and for the ofiense 
were fined six pounds. 



16 LES TROIS EOIS. 

indulgencej like Jeshuraii of old, they kicked. 
Pittsburg — it was in the line of its trade — saw 
what were the growing wants of its cnstomers, 
and was neither slothful nor negligent to supply 
them. Highways, broad and evenly graded, to 
take the place ol^scant and scraggy trails/ were 
opened. For the grand main thoroughfares, 
turnpikes were laid. Pack-saddles as contriv- 
ances, weak and insufficient, for the carrying of 
merchandize, were laid aside, and the Wagon was 
employed in their stead. 

Huge affairs, and stout as hickory and oak, 
well banded and bolted in place with iron, 
could make them, were these Wagons. And great 
need was there that they should be, to bear the 
heavy burdens with which they were freighted. 
Their beds, except in very rare slack seasons, were 
always packed to the brim — often, when ladings 
were light of weight comparatively, up above 
that level in a round heap, to the very ribs of the 
bowed frame supporting the canvas by which 
from end to end they were covered and, with its 
fastenings, corded in. The teams that did the 
hauling consisted of four, sometimes six, horses ; 



LES TROIS ROIS. 17 

all of first-family blood, and meriting well the 
generous care and kee})ing they received. From 
his saddle on the stallion at the ' left wheel/ the 
driver, with a single line attached to the bridle- 
rein of the animal in the lead, directed their 
course. He carried^ a pliable leathern whip 
('black-snake' he called it), a good handful in 
size at the butt, tapering gradually to a point, and 
terminating in a short, twisted silken lash, which 
it was his pleasure to flourish and make go off, 
with a crack like the shot of a pistol, about the 
flanks and the ears of his cattle. A dog, to serve 
on watch at night, was usually, while on the route, 
to be seen walking either at rear of the wagon or 
under its tongue, between the wheel-horses, in 
front. Bells of different diminutive sizes, at- 
tached in sets, like chimes, to bands of brass that 
reached, bending in graceful curves, from hame 
to hame over the horses' shoulders, once in a while 
were to be heard, ringing out their merry jingle 
on the air. Glad to the ears of dwellers by the way- 
side were these ringings of the bells — gladder still 
to their owner's, for they came to be his by fair 
winning at general competition, and every separate 
sound sent out was as a voice to proclaim that his 



18 LES TKOIS EOIS. 

was the banner wagon, his the team of teams, and 
he the champion driver of the road. 

The wagons had a carrying capacity, each, of 
from four to five tons. A day's journey was 
about equal to that of the pack-horse, some 
twenty-five miles. The teams had fatiguing 
labor to undergo and toiled at it slowly ; never 
advancing their pace beyond a walk, and a lazy, 
loitering one at that. The drivers were not severe 
upon their ^beasts'; did not incline to overtax 
them ; let them jog along pretty much as they 
pleased ; locked the wheels not to have them urged 
too fast coming down the hills; and stopped, not 
seldom, for long rests between short pulls, going 
up. Time was not money in those days, or if it 
was, men on the road were not miserly in the 
spending of it. At sunset, if a tavern were at 
hand, — as one generally was, since they were 
planted a proper day's journey, as nearly as 
possible, apart, — the team arriving turned into its 
yard : if, however, kept back by accidental delays, 
none such accommodation offered, no matter; the 
nearest walnut tree, or willow, growing on the 
wayside, with the pump or spring under it, 
afforded all the shelter, and the only other unpro- 
vided want — water — that was needed. Thus 



LES TEOIS KOIS. 19 

suited, the driver unhitched his horses; stripped 
them of their gears; posted them, haltered, in 
pairs on opposite sides of the tongue — to which 
had been fastened previously a trough or feeding- 
box, unhooked for such use from its carrying- 
place at the rear end of the wagon-bed — supplied 
in full measure, and left thera, satisfied, to the 
enjoyment of their rations — their corn or their 
oats. A hamper (private) was then brought 
mysteriously to view, out of the miscellaneous 
contents of which — a brown paper parcel savorily, 
not to say greasily, suggestive of gammon sand- 
wiches, a green-glass bottle with a corn-cob 
stopper, a twist of tobacco and a pipe — were ex- 
tracted meats and accompauiments, enough for a 
feast, for himself and his dog. Night fairly 
fallen, his hunger satisfied and his pipe smoked 
out, he climbed into his wagon, out of the softest 
bales arranged a bed ; theu, with above and about 
him, the twinkle of stars, the chirp of crickets, 
the moan of doves, the far-off bark of cur or 
mastiff, with their lulling influences, to invite, 
and a final pull at the green-glass bottle to com- 
plete, the yielding, he resigned him to sleep. 

The scene, with such an air of tiresomeness and 
languor about it in the evening, wore a livelier 



20 LES TROIS ROIS. 

aspect in the morning. Then was there pawing 
of feet and rattling of halter-chains, and a throw- 
ing back of ears, and shrill screeches, and ill- 
tempered bitings at each other among the horses, 
restive from rest, and cross from hungering and 
a too long unrewarded waiting over an empty 
trough. Then, on the part of the teamster, was 
there handling of feed-bags, and carrying of 
water, and currying of cattle, and examining of 
hoofs to assure against loose shoes and chance 
bruises ; then, one by one, the taking off, and one 
by one again the putting on, of wheels to lubricate 
the axles, filling thick the air around with the 
odor of tar, in the operation. Then the harnessing 
and hitching in of horses; the helping up into 
the wagon, for relief after his night-long watch, 
the dog — who found his rest there, all he seemed to 
need, in sitting at front on his hind legs, and 
looking out from under the canvas in contempla- 
tive survey of the scenery along the road ; the 
mounting into saddle ; the flourish of the whip ; 
the crack of the lash, whose bark was worse than 
its bite ; and then at last, with a long pull, a 
strong pull, and a pull altogether, the strained 
start and painful going of the wain, in its move 
on another new day's journey. 



LES TROIS ROIS. 21 

Push did not seem to be understood, in the 
days herein written of, as a concomitant essential 
to progress. It was taken for granted that as in 
its old-fashioned, soberly-regulated way the earth 
moved, so should move all lesser matters, in which 
power of motion lodged, on its surface. Once 
started a-going, they should be let go, in their own 
order and in their own way. It would be wrong 
to prevent progress, and yet not right to lag 
behind : the proper thing was to link arms, as it 
were, and side by side trudge along, keeping same 
step to same slow music with it. Long as the Pack- 
horse could be, he was depended upon and stood 
by. When in the steady course of events, it was 
found that the burden of business was too much 
for his back, the inevitable was accepted ; he was 
dropped to make room for a fitter vessel, and so 
came in the Wagon. But the crisis was reached 
at length, when the Wagon likewise had crowding 
on it more than it could carry, and then gone was 
its occupation — gone to give way to a new and 
still more largely accommodating rival — the 
Canal- boat. 



22 LES TROIS ROIS. 

Glad, though staidly so, were the good folk of 
Pittsburg, when the Canal, finished complete and 
flooded to the full, was declared open at last for 
navigation ! Glad the dealers in the town's markets 
— the buyers of rare stuffs in the marts of the 
East, and the sellers of the same ! Jubilant the 
traders in corn and in rye; in pork, in wool, in 
whisky; to find a channel offer, reliable for 
prompt and safe delivery to other traders over by 
the sea, of their barrels and their bales ! Trans- 
ported the transporter as from his dock he watched 
to see the keels, weighed belly-deep down with 
freight, pull out in first venture upon their distant 
voyage ! The very mules (two, in tandem,) that 
were the motive-power to the new-fangled craft, 
touched by the prevailing enthusiasm, grew 
frolicsome like their betters — cocked their ears, 
switched their tails, kicked up their heels, and 

with a start and a Well, well; if they behaved 

with unbeseeming, perhaps indelicate, levity, the 
occasion was remembered and they were forgiven. 

There was not much — in fact nothing — to boast 
of either way, when one came to compare rates of 
speed attained, or attainable, as between wagon 
and canal-boat. Both were slow coaches at 
smartest. If the end of an hour found the latter 



LES TROIS ROIS. 23 

advanced two miles beyond where the beginning 
took it up, reasonable progress had been made; if 
three miles, then the mules achieving the work 
had done nobly, and were entitled to rank, on the 
tow-path, with the horses that carried the bells on 
the turnpike. But the differences, other than this, 
were great, and all in favor of the Canal-boat. 
It required from four to six horses to haul a load 
of five tons by wagon. Two males could tow, 
with no more toil, a boat weighted with five times 
five tons, aye, and a fifth of as much more, in its 
hold. For teams on the turnpike eight or ten 
hours at pulling were considered a fair day's 
portioning for a fair day's work. On the tow-path 
it was tramp, tramp, tramp, from daylight to 
dark, from dark to daylight, all the time — 
making, thus, a gain of actual going ahead of 
some sixteen out of twenty-four hours' count, 
equal to well-nigh forty miles, over the wagon. 
Nor were the mules at all over-tasked at their 
work. If they had their 'on's' at toil they had 
their ^ off 's ' for rest as well ; for each boat had 
its force of four, so that, turn about, while one 
pair tugged at the rope, on shore, the other rode 
at elegant ease, as passengers, in a private state- 
room on board. 



24 LES TROIS ROlS. 

The crew of a boat consisted of a captain, a 
steersman, two drivers and an elderly woman 
cook. The duty of the steersman was to stand at 
his helm — or sit on it if he liked; to steer shy 
of lee-shores ; to smoke the pipe of peace, and 
between puffs, when so disposed, to drop driblets 
of dallying discourse down through a hatchway, 
close in front of him, for the delectation of the 
cook in the kitchen. The captain's responsible 
business was, to walk the deck ; to scan at times, 
with side-long glance, distant horizons, as though 
suspicious of storms brewing there-away some- 
where ; when he came to a lock, to trumpet 
' Slack !^ to the driver through his hands, com- 
mandingly; un-pin the tow-line with a touch of 
his foot on an iron spring, and let the craft free 
from its cable, float in through the gates ; then, in 
presence of the lock-keeper, as afterwards, meeting 
other boats with other captains on their decks, 
gruffly to hail his pilot with, ^Hard a-helm there, 
damn your eyes!' not wickedly nor maliciously, 
but — professionally, say, as significant of his 
office, and so that land-lubbers loafing about 
should learn that he was master of that, his craft 
— knew what discipline was, and how, according 
to approved naval usage, to exercise and maintain 
it; nothing more. 



LES TROIS ROIS. 25 

At his post of service, the driver, away by 
himself and cut off entirely from communication 
with his friends — except through speaking-trum- 
pets — might be supposed to have had a lonely time 
of it. And so he had. But he did not cavil at 
it; in fact he rather liked it. His hours may 
have been tedious, but they were not tasteless. 
To while them away, if in his lighter mood, 
passing by where scattering habitations were, he 
would exchange jolly greetings with the good- man 
leaning idly against his door-post; wave cheery 
salutes to the wafe, from behind lookino;; over her 
spouse's shoulder; tip sly winks to the cherry- 
cheeked daughter peeping out at the window, and, 
if afoot, and fairly tempted to it, throw a flip-flap 
on the tow-path, to the wonder unutterable — and 
how to the rapture ! — of the small boy staring 
out through the bars of the garden-gate. Medi- 
tatively disposed, he could find solace for himself 
in silent communion with nature; lending an ear 
to her sermons in the stones ; or, less seriously 
inclined, borrowing entertainment from her books 
— old-fashioned scrolls — in the running brooks, 
unfolding to him roll after roll of romance and 
of poem — read by the light of the lamp of the 
moon, how bewitching ! 



26 LES TROIS ROIS. 

If high were the hopes which Pittsburg 
cherished^ at the opening of this new channel for 
her commerce, they were fully realized. From 
the date of her day of small things, — the 
pack-saddle period — when the people within her 
gates were but as a handful, she had kept on 
growing; slowly, but steadily, healthily growing. 
From year to year, span by span did she lengthen 
her cords and stretch forth the curtains of her 
habitations. The scant scores of her population 
multiplied into hundreds, these, during her Wagon 
age, into tens of hundreds, until at the finishing 
of her canal (1832), they had reached a total of 
seventeen thousand souls. Nor had the country, 
meanwhile, proved less progressive than the town. 
The time that was, when lands in whole sections 
were ownerless, and could be had any day for the 
taking, had long gone. Acres were havings and 
holdings worth money. Farms lay, not scattered 
sparsely here and there, in far-apart patches with 
wide breadths between of waste wilds, but every- 
where; close, compact, as settings in a mosaic 
— just what they looked to be. 

Multitudes coming in to occupy the land, the 
'Border was continually crowded back and back. 
Of various blood and breed the new possessors of 



LES TKOIS ROIS. 27 

the new properties, their very differences worked 
to advantage; for while the Yankees — the later 
importation — were staking out their townships on 
the plateaus under Lake Erie, and peopling them 
prolifically, the Scotch-Irish natives, with a praise- 
worthy spirit of emulation, were extending their 
settlements down along the Ohio River. Tons upon 
tons increasing with every year, of the reapings of 
the vast fields thus brought under cultivation, were 
hauled or floated up and down the highways and 
water-courses centering there, to seek a selling- 
place through Pittsburg. The ware-houses at the 
docks — great sheds with spacious floors — had 
freights crowded into them more than they could 
shelter; and the canal-boats — the time had come, 
which it had been fondly imagined never could 
come, when even they were taxed to the extreme 
to do expected service; and only that, and then, 
by close bestowing, and after delays vexatious to 
the carrier, and disappointing to his customers. 

This state of affairs could not last long. The 
demands of traffic, enlarging all the time, had to 
be met, actively, not negligently, or the town's 
mainstay to its prosperity would be lost. There 
was a needful place — that was evident — to be 
filled ; and the ^ Wanted ' for it — an operator, 



28 LES TROIS ROIS. 

earnest, energetic, aggressive; a One, inspired — 
a Wise Man — to know what, toward keeping 
ways clear and making things move, was to be 
done, and to see it done — that needed, too, to be 
supplied. And it Avas. 

William Thaw was quite a young man — 
only seventeen years of age — when, in 1835, 
he was offered, and accepted, a position as 
clerk in the forwarding and commission house of 
McKee, Clarke & Co. In this subordinate capacity 
he served for five years; a term long enough, put 
industriously to use, to qualify him thoroughly 
for the higher place he was called to, at its expir- 
ation in 1840, as junior partner in the firm of 
Clarke & Thaw. That, stepping into this new 
enterprise, he was putting foot on ground slipj)ery 
and uncertain, he knew. The venture was attended 
by no having, or commanding, of circumstantial 
advantage. The ground was quite fully occupied, 
as it was. Old stagers, such as Lloyd, and GrafP, 
and TaafFe, and McFaden, and — last on the list, but 
foremost of all in fame and in fortune — David 
Leech, were in the field; nor did they drive slow 



LES TKOIS KOIS. 29 

coaches, any among them, either. Mc»ney, not a 
little, was required to set a new establishment 
afloat — more, considerably, to keep it from sinking 
afterwards. The canal, owned by the State, was 
a free highway, open, like a turnpike, to all who 
chose to take to it, and pay the tolls; but the 
transporters had to attend to their own outfitting 
— build their own boats, and buy their own 
mules. 

For their forwarding, westward, the River was 
there at command, but they had to furnish their 
own steamers. Competition, as to charges, ran 
high among the houses ; too high for compensation 
to keep up with it, and that was about the costliest 
feature of the business. These, and such as these, 
were the hills of difficulty that had to be sur- 
mounted ; these, and such as these, the Giants in 
the way to be wrestled with and overcome. The 
young partner, the man of action in the new 
house, was not intimidated, and did not shrink at 
view of them. He had faith in his enterprise, 
faith in himself, and — fail ? There could be no 
failure; in his lexicon there was no such word. 
So, before-hand, advised, and so, presently, as- 
sured, he entered the arena. 

Thus far advances, considerable and important 
4 



30 LES TROIS ROIS. 

certainly, in the carrying trade had been made. 
The turnpike had brought with it a gain great 
over the ' trail '; compared to the wagon the 
pack-saddle was a toy. Still greater was the gain 
of the tow-path over the turnpike ; the wagon of 
the one was a puny, tubby affair ; but a cock-boat, 
on wheels, contrasted with the carack of the other. 
But, gone thus far, improvement went no farther. 
The same old dilatoriness in locomotion prevailed ; 
the same undervaluing, and consequent putting to 
loose profit, of time; The horse had gone at a 
walk on the road; the mule went at a walk on the 
canal. In fact, everybody, everything, went at a 
walk. ' Festina lente^ — ^ take it easy' — was the 
motto men served under ; the rule they worked 
by. They did not see the preciousness of the 
property they were trifling with — how it might 
be utilized, and how put to account. But now 
there was an eye of keener perception about— the 
new, and more enlightened. Adventurer's — that 
did ; and straightway turned was there a new leaf, 
and begun a new chapter, in the annals of the 
business. Action — lively, stirring action — became 
the order of the day. Success was a reward that 
to be won had to be raced for, and the contestants 
set at it accordingly. The easy-going ways of 



LES TEOIS ROIS. 31 

the boatmen were corrected. Captains, cautioned, 
buckled more tightJy to duty; drivers brisked up, 
and mules, tickled to it, stepped out for all that 
was in them. Boats walked the water like thinfrs 
of life, and grass was a gone growth on the tow- 
path. The Portage road (of rails) across mount- 
ains, connecting broken ends of the canal at 
Johnstown and Hollidajsburg, had been the 
occasion of much cost both in time and in money, 
necessitating, as it did, an unloading and a loading 
over again of all cargoes while on their passage 
to or from Pittsburg. This was a hinderance not 
to be endured. To overcome it, boats were built 
in sections so that they could be taken apart on 
one side, placed on trucks, rail-roaded over 
and, re-united, set afloat again on the other, with 
scarce a pause to their progress. 

The revival they started on the canal was of a 
type mild compared to the out-break of it on the 
River. The wharf along the Monongahela was 
the scene of liveliest activity. Steam-boats lined 
the shore from one graded end of it to the other. 
On board, men, thick and busy as ants, moved 
serving about— groups in the light on deck, 
sharing labors at lifting, or lowering of freights 
with groups in the dark, down in the holds below, 



32 LES TROIS ROIS. 

and giving work to' other groups receiving what 
was to be received, or discharging what was to be 
discharged over the planks of the gang-ways. 
* Rats ' swarmed the shore heaving at hogsheads, 
and casks, and crates, and bales, and tumbling 
them home to heaps high out of water-reach on 
the wharf. Drays, carts, wagons, rolled thumping 
up and down over the cobble-stones in steady, 
continuous round, bringing back burdens in full 
return for what they came to bear away. 

But the object inviting notice most, and chief 
to be noticed in the scene, was the steamer, the 
casting loose of whose cable from its fastening on 
shore, the drawing-in of whose gangway-planks, 
and a last quickly-struck warning of whose bell 
— the large swinging one on the hurricane deck 
— gave signal of departure. For as the River 
was its great channel of commerce to the city — 
that upon which this, its then leading pursuit, 
depended most for continued prosperity — so, ac- 
cordingly, great was the popular interest that 
centered in it, and in all that pertained to it. 
They had a passion for a boat, the people, ardent 
as that of a lover for his mistress. So had the 
Captain. It was a joy to him to manoeuvre her 
at starting so as to show off to advantage her 



LES TEOIS EOIS. 33 

points; her symmetries of form, her graces of 
motion ; but more than a joy — a perfect blessed- 
ness — to give proof of her speed, when fairly out 
and free to go on the water ! That, after all, like 
charity among its sisters, was to her the virtue of 
virtues ; without it she was nothing. 

Rivalry ran high among the Captains. As in 
the turnpike days the wagon that out-sped the 
rest won the high right to wear the bells, so the 
steam-boat making the fastest run enjoyed the 
proud distinction of carrring the Hiorns' — the 
branching antlers of a buck. The honor could 
go to but one boat, of course, but all might con- 
tend for it ; and not without prospect of advantage, 
since even though defeated, it was fame worth 
struggling for to be counted as second, or even 
next best under second, on the list. The ^Buckeye 
State^ gained the coveted prize at her first attempt, 
holding on to it afterwards to the end of her 
brilliant career.* The 'Brilliant' did not care to 
enter the lists as against her, but that was no 
reason why she should not try a course with the 
' Teleg7^aph,^ or ring out rejoicings from her bell 
when she won. Sights worth the seeing were 
these races — sights to stir the blood and make 

* The 'Allegheay' (Capt. Chas. W. Batchelor) won the horns in 1852, but 
not as in competition with the ' Buckeye State' iCapt. Saml. Dean). The 
course of the former lay between Cincinnati and Louisville, that of the 
latter between Pittsburg and Cincinnati. 



34 LES TROIS ROIS. 

the hearts beat high, of those engaged in thera ! 
If there ever was a time when all hands were 
alive on board, it was then ; if there ever was a 
time when stokers stood willingly up to their task, 
stripped bare to the belt so as at coolest and freest 
to front the flames and do their hot work well, it 
was then ! If ever there was a time that coal was 
found too cold a fuel, and rosin, and tar, and bacon, 
as of fierier force, were fed the furnaces to make 
them blaze as they should, it was then ! Then, 
the contagion of excitement quick to communicate, 
would passengers line the guards, and gather in 
groups on deck, to ^^ atch how held the heat ; if 
promisingly, to flatter, if doubtfully, to warn, the 
Captain — who needed no warning, but who, at 
his forward post on the hurricane deck, when 
the time to prove him came, winked quietly a 
message to the pilot, who piped its meaning to 
the engineer below, who told it to the firemen. 
Then busy moving of feet about the boilers would 
follow, and banging open and shut of iron doors, 
and fresh roaring of flames, and a thickening of 
pitchy, and flitchy, odors in the air ; when the 
strained timbers of the vessel would tremble, and 
its whole frame shake under pain of its labor — a 
labor tremendous to endure, but which was to find 



LES TROIS ROIS. 35 

no cease nor ease, until its crisis of deliverance 
came, and cheers exultant on the one side, and 
sullen silence on the other, told of a victory won, 
and lost! Severe as was the test to which 
steamers, on these occasions, were put, they stood 
it well ; and it is still the boast of the one or two 
yet surviving of their commanders, that never 
did an explosion occur (among packets of the 
line, that is), nor ever befall an accident to result 
either in damage to a vessel, or in the loss of life 
to any of its passengers. 

The improvement in the construction, finish 
and equipment of these boats^ from the date of 
their first introduction to the time when — when 
they, too, found their occupation gone, and fol- 
lowed in the wake of the wagon oif after the 
pack-horse, was great. The 'Arabian,^ ' Pioneer,^ 
^ Waeousta,^ of the first line started (1835), were 
respectable, indeed, and not unpretty, though plain 
as compared to the ^ Monongahela/ the 'Hibermia,^ 
the ^Messenger,' and other like higher-toned fair 
ones of the class of ^46, but were cast into the 
shade utterly on the later appearing, one by one 
in successive seasons along until '56, of such 
dashing beauties as the 'Allegheny/ the 'Brilliant^ 
and the 'Crystal Palace.^ 



36 LES TROIS ROIS. 

Wheeling, having her separate avenue of com- 
munication with the East through Cumberland 
to Baltimore, had begun to dispute the right of 
Pittsburg to a monopoly of the River trade. 
While the commerce of the latter had now a wide- 
spread reach, extending to towns on the Mississippi 
and along the navigable waters tributary to that 
river, the port of paramount importance to her — 
that which contributed most largely to her profit 
— was Cincinnati. To wrest, if possible, this prize 
from her rival, was the object of first desire with 
Wheeling; to hold on to it, at any cost, the 
resolve of Pittsburg. In this temper both set to 
work ; each doing her extravagant and most 
costly best to outdo the other. — At the very time, 
had they but known, when of all times it would 
have been better for both, far better, to have 
folded their arms and done nothing. For a new 
course for commerce to follow had opened, and a 
new conveyer — a conveyer ' whose chariots were 
as a whirlwind, and whose horses swifter than 
the eagles,^ — had come ; to deliver to canal and 
river their death-blow, and to leave tow-boats and 
steamers corpses on the hands of their owners — 
dead properties to be broken up and bartered off 



LES TROIS ROIS. 37 

for scrap-iron and kindling-wood, fit as they were 
to them for no more profitable use. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad, when it was finished 
and got into working-condition (1852) entered 
upon a career which — so it had been destined — 
was to bring about an entire change in the affairs 
of Pittsburg. The city's trade, that to which in 
its infantile days, under administration of the 
Pack-horse, it had been apprenticed: to which, 
under ^ boss'-ism of the Wagon, it had done 
journeyman service, and to the independent 
prosecution of which as Master-workman, under 
auspices of the Canal and the River, it had devoted 
itself, was lost and gone. The places that knew 
the Forwarding and Commission houses on Water 
Street were to know them no m(jre. The Dray 
as an institution, mighty in its day, was to drop, 
with its driver, into desuetude. So with other 
classes in other callings— and there were armies 
of them — holding place or employment in one 
form of dependence or another, under the old 
working system; as it went down, they going 
down with it. But the prime sufferers were the 
transportation companies. Fortunes had been 



38 LES TEOIS ROIS. 

expended in the erection of warehouseSj the build- 
ing of boats, the purchase of stock, live and still, 
for the transfer of freight, and the procurement 
of properties innumerable besides, necessary to a 
complete outfit for the establishments; and now, 
all, at a one stroke — all, with a one common fate, 
into a one common w^eck, were to pass and to 
perish together ! It was a cruel blow. Under 
shock of it the stricken, helpless and hopeless, 
— with no heart left to even try at recovery — 
retired from the field. — All, save one. 

Mr. Thaw had not miscalculated in his reckon- 
ing of the risks and resistances he would have to 
encounter in taking up his business, nor had he 
relied with a confidence unwarranted, as events 
proved, on his ability to meet them. Once en- 
tered upon his calling, with all his might he 
followed it up. Gains were to be won — so gains 
worth the having always are — only by hot pur- 
suing and hard striving for; but he had the wind 
in him, the will and the wear, for that — won from 
the start, and went on winning and winning. 
Steadily and strengtheningly his trade grew. Boat 
after boat was added to the canal. On the River, 
as old ports — Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, 
St. Louis — from increasing traffic demanded, and 



LES TKOIS KOIS. '69 

as new ones opening from time to time, on the 
Upper Mississippi, the Illinois and the Missouri, 
invited, steamer after steamer was built, until they 
were numbered by fleets. From first to last Mr. 
Thaw was proprietor ily interested in over one hun- 
dred and fifty. These were costly possessions. To 
have them go, and, what was worse, to have go with 
them that which the best years of his life had 
been spent to make great and profitable — his 
occupation — was more than he would consent to ; 
more than he would submit to — if he could help 
it. 

They who have looked upon the mau, and seen 
his eye — every diamond -pointed arrowy glance 
of which, shot from the bent bow of its lid, strikes 
and pierces through and through what it aims at ; 
seen his nose (that expressive feature, up to more 
than snufi^, decidedly), so bold in projection, so 
clean-cut in outline, with nostrils thin and distent, 
like those of the war-horse when he smells the 
battle afar ; seen his mouth, tight shut, lip against 
lip, as though his teeth had seized some stag of a 
purpose and were holding on to it with the bite 
of a buU-dop; ; seen the hairs on his head and in 
his beard, each short-cropped particular of which, 
electrically charged with energy, stands stiff" on 



40 LES TROIS ROIS. 

end ; seen the granite-built, pyramidal physique 
under all ; can settledly understand the manner of 
mortal he is of — can understand that when he 
wills he wills, and that what he tries he does, or, 
come to it, in the trying dies. With one such as 
a disputant in the case, the result can be antici- 
pated. A war between the two powers — mule 
and locomotive — had to follow, of course ; and it 
followed. 

Such a contest might seem an unequal one, but 
the advantages were not so wholly one-sided then 
as they are now. The rails of which the road 
was built, were made of iron, the cheapest in cost 
— and in quality — that could be bought in the 
market (for the Company, pinched for money, had 
to drive close bargains), and were consequently 
very liable to break, to the wrecking of trains and 
the running-up of fearful bills for damages. The 
canal was safe against all such accidents. It could 
not be hit to be hurt anywhere or anyhow — unless 
by a " low bridge,'' to the knocking overboard of 
a captain, or a cook come up on deck to air her- 
self, perhaps — a dip that might drench but could 
not drown, and that therefore could be made of 
no charge as against the carrier. Trains, with 
but one track to come and go on, would run into 



LES TKOIS ROIS. 41 

each other ; and so, indeed, might canal-boats, — 
and so, indeed, might a pair of ducks met on a 
mill-pond ; bat the woe only possible in any case 
to ensue would all fall on the cars. The trans- 
porter took the benefit of all favoring chances 
that offered ; made the most out of his advantages, 
and turned to best account the weaknesses of his 
enemy. ' War, war was still the cry, war even to 
the knife !' The battle was long and valiantly 
fought, but it was a losing game from first to last 
on both sides. Freights were dropped to rates 
that, perhaps, kept in oats the mules on the canal, 
and in coal the locomotives on the railroad, but 
not much more. 

For three years did this ruinous rivalry keep 
up. Money by the million went to waste. Boys 
that angled in the locks for cat-fish made more 
profit out of the canal than the transporters. The 
same contest with the same result attended the 
working of the ways running West. 

Upon the completion of the Pennsylvania it had 
been considered all-important that other roads 
should be had reaching out in different directions 
so as to command the traffic of the West. Per- 
suaded to that effect, the cities Pittsburg and 
Allegheny and the county Allegheny lent their 
5 



42 LES TROIS ROIS. 

credit largely towards their construction, reckon- 
ing hopefully on rich returns from the invest- 
ment; only, however, to be disappointed. The 
Pennsylvania and Ohio (afterwards the Pittsburg, 
Fort Wayne and Chicago), the Pittsburg and 
Cleveland, and the Pittsburg, Columbus and 
Cincinnati were built, indeed, which was so much 
gained, but they did not turn out according to 
expectation. Returns waited anxiously for, failed 
to come. Confidence languished ; sickening with 
it, shares weakened and weakened, until, sunk in 
hopeless collapse, they lay for dead on the market. 
The gospel of repudiation then began to be 
preached, Thomas Williams, a lawyer of reputa- 
tion — and the owner of no little taxable property 
in the cities besides — acting as its chief })roclaimer. 
His stormy eloquence wrought with telling eifect. 
Other owners of other town lots gathered in 
crowds to hear him, and, glad to have drowned 
down by the loud-tongued eloquence of so respon- 
sible an advocate, the still small voice, protestant, 
of a secret but surer counsellor, owned and 
honored his speech with cheers of approval* In 
his flock of followers were men, many, prominent 
and of prime moral standing among the people, 
who would blush to see it so, pointedly, published 



LES TEOIS EOIS. 43 

of them now. Happily there were honest ones left 
enough in the community, to save the reputation of 
the whole. The cities and the county were a little 
late coming to it, but they came at last ; honored 
their bonds and sustained their credit. The 
movement was as unwise as it was unworthy. Its 
natural result was to utterly destroy what little 
confidence was left in the rail- roads; to make the 
already bad condition of their stocks desperately 
worse ; to start a ^ scare ^ and on the impulse of it 
to drive the corporations to a sale of their shares, 
just at the juncture when down at their lowest 
notch of depreciation. 

Mr. Thaw saw, then, his opportunity and im- 
proved it. While others, demoralized by the 
failures attending their first workings, lost faith 
in their (interprises, he, relying upon what he knew 
to be in them, rather than what had been feebly 
and imperfectly, thus far, brought out of them, 
believed, and as they let go, took hold — in his 
accustomed active, unhesitating way, took hold. 
He stopped his lines on the w^aters; sold his 
steamers, his canal-boats and his mules for what 
they would bring ; closed the doors of his ware- 
houses : and the places on the docks and the 
quays that had known him for so long, thence- 



44 LES TROIS ROIS. 

forth knew him no more. Dog-cheap were the 
prices his old properties went at; but dog-cheap, 
too, was the cost of the new — the railway shares 
into which they were turned. It was a deal of 
truck for truck, when, as there was no limit to 
offerings of stock at old-clothes rates, there need 
be no end to buying on the same terms. He 
bought : bought freely again and again, and kept 
on buying. Then — to make sure his cure for 
past hurts — not content with a hair only, he 
struck in for the hide in whole of the dog that 
had bit him — ^joined with a select coterie of others, 
formed an organization, and as the ^ Pennsylvania 
Company/ obtained possession and secured exclu- 
sive control of all the Western roads. His 
peculiar fitness for the place recognized, his com- 
pany appointed him its prime executive officer, 
throwing the chief management of its affairs into 
his hands. 

The position was a responsible one. When, 
sixteen years before, he first put hand to his 
business, the West, trading through Pittsburg, 
had a population all told of about 5,000,000. To 
carry one way and the other, what this people 
bought and what they sold in their traffic with the 
East, kept six richly-equipped transportation com- 



LES TEOIS KOIS. ' 45 

panics (not to mention other several smaller and 
weaker operators) actively employed from the open- 
ing of each season to its close. The year 1856 fonnd 
the West peopled with 11,000,000 inhabitants — 
mouths to feed and bodies to clothe having more 
than doubled between the two dates. Now that 
the canal was a ^ dead duck/ this service — the 
demand upon it grown so large already as that 
the whole force of forwarders, ere they retired, 
could hardly meet it — fell to the rail-road ; fell 
to the direction of the single brain of the agent 
placed at its head. The obstacles he had to en- 
counter were many and formidable. The roads, 
even in their as yet incomplete condition, were in 
a rickety, half-ruined state. -Their rolling stock 
was no better ; and to make stil 1 more desperate 
the case, they stood in such low credit that no one 
from among the able anywhere outside was found 
willing to come to their help. This darkly un- 
promising state of affairs did not dishearten Mr. 
Thaw. It worked, in fact, exactly the other way 
— put him on his pluck; caused those resolved 
teeth of his to shut with a tighter bite, and that 
upper lip to fasten down and back the teeth for 
all there was in them. 

The road-beds needed to be leveled and bal- 



46 LES TKOIS EOIS. 

lasted; they were ballasted and leveled. The 
rails needed to be replaced with an iron of quality 
better than pot-metal ; they were replaced. Cars 
were sadly wanted to move freight; he advanced 
the cash, had built and set rolling a hundred of 
them. The locomotives in use were wizened, 
wheezy, weak-kneed aiFairs that along levels and 
down hills would move cleverly enough, but 
meeting an up-grade would ' take the studs,' stop, 
and rather burst than budge. He retired them 
from the track, packed them oiF after his other 
discarded properties, and got new ones built to go, 
and that did not know what to balk was. Single 
tracks (all his roads had,) offered open invitation 
all the time for collisions, — an invitation which 
trains too often were not tardy to accept. Soon 
as could be side-tracks at meeting-places along 
routes were lengthened, more and more lengthened, 
until, before the public were fairly aware of it, 
double pairs of rails were laid pretty nearly all 
the way through from end to end of the several 
lines. The roads having different termini at 
Pittsburg, goods in transit had to be hauled by 
wagon from one station to another, occasioning 
much delay, cost and trouble. They were ex- 
tended, bridged across the Allegheny and Monon- 



LES TROIS EOIS. 47 

gahela Rivers, and all brought together at a 
common depot; the one that risen up from the 
ashes of its predecessor, burned down in the riot 
of '77, now stands on Liberty Street. Thus the 
transfer business was brought to a close ; a close 
not ever to know opening again. Old employes, 
too long habituated to old fogy, slow-going ways 
to be trained to smarter, were set aside, and new, 
live ones, that carried Fraudsheim watches and 
went by them, were put in their places. The 
^ Star line ' was started, a fast freight, the first of 
its kind, by which goods shipped at Philadelphia 
and destined for Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, 
or anywhere else intermediately, could be shipped 
straight through without a change of cars. Things 
were reduced to system and put into ship-shape 
order all the way along. Business boomed. 
Shares in the several companies rushed up — up. 
They ran to par — over par — in the market. Their 
worth came to be invaluable. Everybody wanted 
them. Holders of trust funds ; guardians of 
orphans; missionary societies ; old retired Pres- 
byterian preachers — who, once, afterwards had to 
umpire a duel between the devil and their con- 
sciences before Synods, because of trains running 
on Sundays, conscience getting the good-bye and 



48 LES TROIS ROIS. 

the devil coming in for the award, of course; — 
all money-handlers, except County Republican 
Committees and State Treasurers, who preferred 
to place their cash where — the question of safety 
not over-careful ly considered — it would do the 
most good ; all put what they had for safe invest- 
ment into them. Good people everywhere seemed 
to have caught the notion that Providence had 
taken the roads in hand, and that it Avas the next 
thing to laying up treasure in heaven to plant it 
there. If, looking bluely back at it afterwards, 
the repudiating cities and county saw how they 
had fooled away their opportunity: how they had 
saddled them with a debt at pitiful parting with 
what would have made them rich had they held 
on to it, they could take to themselves no better 
consolation than that they got what they deserved. 
Placed on firm footing and fairly started thus, 
the transportation trade of Pittsburg has since 
been one of continually growing prosperity. 
When back in the nineties of the last century John 
Wright ran his pack-horses, capable each of 
carrying his two hundred and fifty pounds, he 
thought, and had the right to think, that he was 
driving a big trade when he could accommo- 
date with his single stable-full of cattle, if 



LES TKOIS ROIS. 49 

not the whole, a mighty share at least, of the 
traffic of the West. Now, not quite a hundred 
years since gone, William Thaw, his latest pro- 
fessional successor, as official head of the Penn- 
sylvania Company, sees rush through his various 
lines into and out of the city as high as fifty 
thousand tons of freight daily. Early got ready 
of a morning, and early gone, eight, say, of John 
Wright's horses, with two thousand pounds of 
lading on their backs, might by night-fall reach 
Greensburg, some twenty-eight miles — a long 
day's journey — out on their way. With a single 
iron steed William Thaw, making even start as to 
time, could take his three hundred and fifty tons, 
or more, and, ere John's horses could have eaten 
their oats next morning, find the same with more 
than half the whole distance traversed on its way to 
Chicago. An astonishing run in the race of pro- 
gress ! — and yet not making the measure in full 
of it either; for other roads, invited by the 
success attending the Pennsylvania Company's, 
have been constructed, through whose operation 
full a fifth of as much more must be added to the 
sum of daily shippings and receivings at the city's 
depots, swelling the whole to over sixty thousand 
tons. 



50 LES TROIS ROIS. 

These its iron highways, however, are not the 
only courses through which the town finds carriage 
for its commerce, nor is its extent indicated to the 
full by what they do. The abandonment of the 
canal brought to an abrupt end the connecting 
steamer lines on the Ohio, but trade on the river 
did not perish — not by any means — w^ith its ^ pack- 
ets.' True, the proud argosies — the ^Alleghenys/ 
the ^ Messengers,' the ^Circassians,' of its plumy 
days, with the Batchelors, the Graces, the Beltz- 
hoovers, their courtly commanders, — are known 
no more on the water, but other keels have taken 
their place ; keels of a less grand order indeed, 
though for their work none the worse of that ; 
looking, as they do, not to emporiums of the 
East or granaries in the West, but to the treasure- 
yielding crypts in the hills about home, for the 
precious wherewithal to make up their cargoes. 

The coal-field, of which Pittsburg is the center, 
covers a broad area, embracing, with occasional 
barren or poorly-bearing patches, all the territory 
within boundaries of old, original Westmoreland 
County, or, in other words, the State entire of 
Pennsylvania west of the Allegheny mountains. 
The richest veins are found in the hills that 
border the Monongahela and Youghiogheny 



LES>TEOIS ROIS. 51 

Rivers, with the creeks and smaller streams 
tributary to them. The fronts of the steeps 
bordering these waters for a hundred miles are 
orificed all along with dark, deep-throated mouths, 
open, not to devour, but to disgorge the diet 
digested of what in aeons past they fed and 
fattened upon. Between pits are to be seen fires 
burning, by day and by night, of long lines of 
ovens, in which the crude fuel as burrowed from 
the mines is converted into coke. Production of 
the raw commodity alone, employs the toil of over 
twenty-seven thousand men. The coal dug is 
packed at the pits in barges. To convey these to 
down-the-river markets, to which, since the in- 
troduction of natural gas into Pittsburg, the trade 
is mainly confined, requires the service of over 
one hundred and twenty boats — each capable of 
towing from six to ten loaded barges, equal, the 
whole fleet, to one million bushels, or ten acres of 
coal; each single acre's yield enough to furnish 
full loading for a 3000 ton ocean steamer. All 
this, too, over and above what is carried by the 
rail-roads, amounting to just about as much more. 
Coke is delivered to consumers in, by measurement 
although not, of course, by weight, very nearly 
the same quantity. 



52 LES TKOIS ROIS. 

To such size, out of the puny, peddling affair 
it was at the beginning, has grown the carrying 
trade of Pittsburg. And yet the business, even 
now, scarcely, if at all, surpassed at any other 
commercial center in the nation, is really but in 
its incipiency. To what length to reach its ne 
plus ultra of progress it is destined to advance, the 
generations that are may live to more and more, 
year by year, wonder and wonder — but never to 
see. He, our Gaspar — Carrier King of the 
tutelary Three, whose directing providence 
through well nigh fifty years has trained it to 
what it is — may pass away, as indeed in the course 
of nature he must, but his virtue, like that of his 
prototype of the Royal Trinity of Cologne, shall 
still lodge in his bones, and the work of his be- 
ginning go on. For long as from their inex- 
haustible holds, the hills around and about, and 
the bowels of the earth under them yield their 
riches ; long as the boundless, bare fields of half 
a hemisphere invite to occupation, and plains and 
mountains multiply their people; long as there 
are human wants, always increasing and in- 
creasing, to supply, so long must the great enter- 
prise, increasing and increasing always too, 
continue. 



LES TROIS EOIS. 53 



II. 



n^HE want of wants in the early days of Pitts- 
burg, that which it felt the need, and mourned 
the lack of most, was iron. For the manifold minor 
purposes for which the metal is now deemed indis- 
pensable, its use was never applied. In the one 
hundred cabins that one hundred years ago 
clustered about Fort Pitt, perhaps not so much 
as a nail was to be found. Planks were laid, when 
laid at all, unfastened on the ground for floors; 
roofs, of clap-boards, were held in place by logs 
laid transversely across them ; doors were hung 
upon oaken hinges, and held shut by oaken 
latches ; while tables, bedsteads, stools and other 
like household furniture, were supported on 
wooden legs fitted into auger-holes in the slabs 
out of which they were made. Philadelphia and 
Baltimore were the nearest points at which metal 
could be obtained, whence worked into bars it 
had to be carried on pack-horses — the bars bent 
bow-wise so as to ride securely on the saddles — 



54 LES TKOIS EOIS. 

at such charges (from twelve to fifteen cents per 
pound), as, added to the original cost, made its 
purchase an extravagance too costly to indulge in 
except as absolute necessity compelled. A singular 
state of aifairs surely, this carrying of coals to 
New Castle, as one would take it; for ore, rich in 
the raw material — and more than plentiful, could 
be had close at hand almost anywhere for the 
digging. The mountains were bosom-full, the 
lesser hills below thick-ribbed through and through 
with it. Nor were the settlers ignorant of the 
fact, as how could they be, with proofs palpable 
before them in the washings along shores of 
running waters, and in the stray nuggets of ^blue 
lump' turned up again and again by plowmen in 
the furrowing of their fields ? But, like as to the 
Ancient Mariner famishing a-thirst, with 

"Water, water, everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink," 

what to the distressed borderer was all this pro- 
fusion of crude substance when he was without 
the chance to purge it of the dross which^defiled 
and unfitted it for use? The art by which this 
was to be done was no mystery to him, 
but the cost of preparation and, after, the 



LES TROIS ROIS. 55 

outlay necessary for the practical prosecution of 
itj meant an expenditure, with — in view of the 
lean and limited market to supply — so doubtful a 
promise of return, that men with nerve enough 
to try the venture had long to be waited for. But 
they came at last. 

In 1790 two merchants of Philadelphia, Messrs. 
Halker and Turner, dealers in metal and hollow 
ware, having their attention called by the yearly 
improving demand for their pots and kettles to 
the growing importance of the place, undertook 
a visit to Pittsburg. They had been told of the 
rich mineral region of which the town was the 
center, and sharply alive to business, thought 
that the time had perhaps arrived when it was 
worth while to come on and take a look at it. 
They came, they saw, and, satisfied, resolved 
forthwith to run the risk and build a furnace. 
Associating with them M. Marmie, a young 
Frenchman, formerly private secretary to Lafay- 
ette, they started out to explore ; selected a site on 
Jacob's Creek — a stream that empties into the 
Youghiogheny — four miles from its mouth, and 
thereon erected their plant. They named it the 
" Alliance.'' Providence seemed at first to smile 
kindly on their enterprise, for, besides the quite 



56 LESrTROISROIS. 

lively demand that sprang up through the country 
for their stoves, sugar-kettles, Dutch ovens, pots, 
skillets, and other such wares (for molding went 
with melting from the ore in those days), they had 
not long been in operation before an order was 
received from Major Craig, in command of the 
garrison at Pittsburg, for four hundred six-pound 
shot! A princely contract — and from Government 
too ! It came a glad surprise — as why shouldn't 
it? — to the proprietors, and put them in high 
feather. Halker and Turner, level-headed old 
tradesmen, were happy over the purchase, most 
happy, of course; but serenely, not insanely so. 
Marmie, born to the inheritance of a different 
temper ; inclined to the light pursuits rather than 
the grave employments of life, and impatiently 
waiting while he worked for the means to gratify 
that inclination, was, on the other hand, in a wild 
ecstasy over it. Four hundred six-pound 
SHOT — all in a one-job lot, and each shot in the 
lot worth a dollar ! There was wealth untold — 
there was independence in it! The sportingly- 
disposed ex-secretary determined to make the 
most of the chance the gods had given him. Now 
that he could, he would take his ease; eat, drink 
and be merry. And he ate and he drank, of the 



LES TROIS ROIS. 57 

choicest and the best, and to the top of his bent 
was merry. He had his horses and his hounds ; 
deer were to be found for the hunting in the 
mountains; for livelier chasing foxes abounded 
and seldom was it when 

"A southerly wind and a cloudy sky, 
Proclaimed it a hunting morning," 

that hill and hollow did not echo to his horn, and 
ring responsive to the baying of his hounds. 

It could not be otherwise than that Marmie 
should soon find these pursuits more pleasant to 
him as a sportsman than profitable as a manager. 
Business felt the evil that followed from neglect; 
uncared for, cared not for itself — drooped, weak- 
ened, declined, sinking suiferingly ; until at last 
came the collapse, the fatal collapse, for which 
there was no remedy, from which there could be 
no recovery. The furnace failed. The unhappy 
calamity fell upon Marmie with distressing effect. 
It left him helpless, despairing, distracted. He 
could not bring himself down to the level of the 
common toiler, where only he could find place 
now, and with a long prospect of labor and 
privation ahead, begin life over again; his pride 
revolted at the thought of it. There remained an 
alternative, only one, and to that, frightful as it 



58 LES TEOIS EOIS. 

was, he resolved to resort. Calling his hounds he 
assembled them on the ' bridge ^ that led to the 
mouth of the furnace. With whip and halloo he 
urged and scourged, driving them towards it. 
The pack, trembling in dismay, with wildly- 
glaring eyes looked, now at the fire blazing from 
the pit, now at the face of their master; then, 
seized, as seemed, by the infection of his madness, 
started, and bounding forward, straight in the 
face of the flame, straight through the scorching 
heat, plunged headlong into the open throat of the 
hell before them. Their tyrant tarried not behind, 
but with a cry — the cry in wild repeat of that 
with which he used to cheer them in the chase — 
followed on their track and rushing to its brink 
flung him after them into the burning hole ! The 
fires of the furnace died out, and were never 
kindled again. Its stack — the tumbled ruins of 
it are still to be seen, the rugged heap feathered 
over with ferns and twined about with vines ; but 
the scene around, so animated once, is one of 
desolation now. No call of hunter nor answering 
bark of hound is heard to awaken the echoes 
among the hills, and the fox seeks its hole and 
hides secure under the very hearthstone of the 
home of its old pursuer. 



LES TKOIS KOIS. 59 

Satisfied by the success which attended the first 
working of the ^ Alliance/ that furnaces could be 
run to advantage^ John Probst, two years later, 
decided to build another. He selected for its 
seat a spot on Laurel Run, a branch of the Loyal 
Hanna, to be nigh to the '■ public road ^ that led 
to Philadelphia, soon, by recent act of Assembly, 
to be converted into a turnpike, out of the growing 
commerce along which he hopefully expected to 
command a profitable custom. Several years later 
Gen. Arthur St. Clair, at the close of his term as 
Governor of the North-Western Territory, erected 
a third plant — the ^ Hermitage,' near Ligonier. 
These were unsuccessful ventures, both of them, 
and after a brief and barren career, were aban- 
doned. But the new industry once started was not 
to be stayed by the stifling of the first adventurers 
in it. If these, trying, had failed, so much the 
worse for them indeed, but that was no reason 
why others should not try again and prosper. 
Others did try — kept on trying. Down one 
might go, — as, in fact, earlier or later he was 
pretty sure to — but no sooner dropped he than 
two were up to take his place. So went the 
losses, so came the gains. 



60 LES TEOIS EOIS. 

Two considerations ruled in determining upon 
the site for a furnace; it was not only important 
to have it near as possible to its source of ore- 
supply, but it was all-essential that it should be 
within convenient reach of the water-power to run 
it. Grounds were selected always, therefore, that 
lay close to natural falls, or rapids that, already 
hulf-choked with rock, could easily be dammed, in 
shallow rivers, such as the Youghiogheny and 
the Cheat ; or, when other choice had to be made, 
on the banks of creeks or runs — any stream with 
flow enough in it, even though but for three 
months in the year, to turn a wheel. Ore was 
obtained by the process known as ^ benching^; 
that is, by digging deep down through the soil 
and shoveling bare the bed in which it lay. The 
grounds thus handled, left ridged and pitted all 
over by the clayey and slaty up-castings, were 
unfitted for cultivation, and, overgrown in time by 
hawthorns, black-berry bushes, wild indigo and 
morning-glories, became spots select for rabbits to 
look to for refuge, quails for cover and snakes for 
hiding-places, but fit for nothing else. Wood for 
charcoal and stone for lime the region abounded 
in, and convenience only was consulted as to 
where kilns for the one and pits for the other 



LES TROIS ROIS. 61 

should be placed. The latter were shifted from 
post to post, following at measured distances the 
chopper, as leaving behind, one after another, low 
mounds of black ashes to mark where they had 
stood, he cut his way deeper and deeper into the 
forest. 

Work on all hands, from the manager down to 
the cart-mule driver was attended to in the easy, 
indolent, careless way common to the time. The 
store-keeper would suspend his proper business at 
any moment to swap jack-knives, match ^coppers' 
or play at checkers with a customer. The black- 
smith would drop hammer and tongs, and out 
forthwith on call, come when it might, to pitch 
horse-shoes with the cobbler, or any other 
challenger, on the green by the road -side. The 
manager was one of a kind with his men. Had 
he a visitor — and singularly happy was he when 
he had — his all of time and attention were at the 
comer's command. Did he take of choice to 
horse-back exercise, and would it please him, an 
hour's, two hours', ten hours' ride to — anywhere; 
Dumonville's Grave, Delaney's Cave, Ohio Pyle 
Falls, the White Rocks where Polly Williams 
was betrayed and murdered? — the leaders from a 
team would be unhitched any moment, and the 



62 LES TROIS ROIS. 

driver given a holiday, to provide canterers for 
the excursion. Inclined he to a quieter and less 
wearisome diversion ? — it was a sacrifice of no 
moment to blow out the furnace and drain off the 
dam — stop the whole establishment — so that he 
might enjoy a fore-noon (if he did not tire of it 
sooner), wading in the mud to fish for eels — and 
to catch water-snakes. These were privileges of 
pleasure which business was bound to respect. 
The furnaces, had they been diligently worked, 
might have done better, but as it was they could 
not well have done worse. A ton and a half of 
metal was considered a fair day's yield ; two tons 
was wealth to the proprietor ; three tons embar- 
rassed him ^vith riches. And yet the product in 
total was enough, quite enough to meet all the 
call there was for it. The market to be supplied 
was not extensive, and the uses to which iron was 
applied, though various, were small and insig- 
nificant. The remainder over the larger part 
delivered in its raw state to the molder, was 
passed under the tilt-hammer and rolled into bars 
and rods. In other forms than these it was seldom 
inquired for. The blacksmith was the buyer-in- 
chief — in only, in fact, it might be said, since 
both rods and bars underwent their last handling 



LES TROIS ROIS. 63 

to fit them for their uses^ on his anvil. His 
shops, except the far-between few set up for the 
accommodation of farmers in oif-the-roacl and 
out-of-the-way neighborhoods, were planted along 
the turnpikes ; for, since his main occupation was 
to shoe horses', and mend broken, or re-place worn 
out, tires, or other gear pertaining to wagons, 
here, on these inviting highways, the grand 
journey -courses of trade and of travel, were to be 
found the stands to catch him custom and bring 
him profit. 

The first rolling-mill erected in the West — in 
the United States in fact — was built in 1817, at 
Plumsock, Fayette County, a few miles back in 
the woods from Brownsville, on the Monongahela 
River; located there so as to be within convenient 
capturing-reach of the blacksmith shops along the 
line of the National road leading to Cumberland. 
Two years later (1819), the second in order, but 
the first of Pittsburg proper's own, was planted ; 
exactly where, or by whom, who knows? The 
pair lived their day — a short, unsunny one — then 
passed away; and so hath ^ the iniquity of oblivion 
blindly scattered her poppy,' that recollection is 
lost, almost, of the fact of either ever having 
been — even in Plumsock. In 1820 a third es- 



64 LES TROIS ROIS. 

tablishment, where scythes and sickles were made, 
was started. Scythes and sickles paid as far as 
they went, and they went as far as they could go ; 
but meadows and fields, to reap and to mow, were 
not over many, and harvesters not caring to carry 
more than one tool at a time, the demand was 
soon supplied, and ceased. H. S. Spang, a young 
man of the town, sagacious, skillful, enterprising, 
believing that there was a might-be of promise 
in the working of iron that never in fact as yet 
had been, and eager to prove it, saw here his 
opportunity. He bought (1828) at a bargain 
from the disappointed scythe and sickle-maker his 
mill ; cleaned out its interior ; re-furnished it with 
the new, necessary machinery; began to roll bar 
iron from blooms, and so established a business 
which was to last on and on ; not always flourish- 
ing indeed — for hard times came, again and again, 
that were sorely trying — but never failing ; and 
which, under ownership and control of Spang, 
Chalfant & Co., his successors, still lives to hold 
place prominent among the leading in its line of 
industry in the city. 

The iron trade, through whole decades of its 
earlier history, had to pass through such sieges of 
tribulation that the wonder is it should have 



LES TEOIS ROIS. 65 

survived the ordeal at all. Disaster followed 
disaster, failure failure, ruin ruin, in fast and 
frightful succession. Furnaces were built, run, 
and kept running, long as out of purses and 
promises to pay could be squeezed the means ; 
but both had their bottom, and that reached 
— sooner or later it was reached, always 
— down went the furnace, and down went the 
master. Mills cost less to build and to man, and 
yet they fared no better. Of the six first erected 
(down to 1824), save one — Dr. Peter Shoen- 
berger's, the ' Juniata,' — all, overtaken by a like 
fate with the furnaces, are gone; clean gone, with 
not even a ruin left to mark where they stood. 
Indeed it could not well have been otherwise. 
The business had been gone into prematurely 
and on much too wide a scale. The temptation, 
to be sure, was great, iron in its finished forms 
commanding prices that seemed to oifer safest 
assurance of success. But half of what was 
made in the crude was more than enough to cast all 
the pots and kettles that house-wives wanted, and 
shoe all the horses, and rim the wheels of all the 
wagons on the roads. By so much, then, the 
trade was overdone, and having to carry unre- 
lieved, year in and year out, on their shoulders 
7 



66 LES TROIS ROIS. 

the other half, no wonder that the backs of the 
bearers before long were broken. 

Pittsburg, then, did not look to derive either a 
present or a future benefit of extraordinary account 
to herself from her iron. It was a good thing to 
have; undoubtedly ; and so was whisky ; and so 
was salt. But goodness is not greatness ; that, her 
high ambition, the city expected to achieve through 
her commerce — her canal-boats and her steamers ; 
not to have it thrust upon her by her manufac- 
tures. ISTot at all ; and small reason had she to. 
The growth of the industry — that, the chief of 
all, which was to prove her making, though she 
did not know it, — was slow ; so slow. The seven 
mills she had in 1825 (the seventh, the ^Sligo,' 
erected in that year), had, in 1829, increased by 
two. Still other two were added during the next 
eleven years, but two were lost, leaving no gain. 
The fourteen years following enlarged the list by 
four; thus constituting a total, in 1850, of but 
thirteen. A beggarly baker's dozen, these, in the 
estimate of to-day ; able, at most, to employ the 
services of but twenty five hundred hands, and to 
show for their work at the end of a year, their 
lean sixty thousand tons of bars and nails ; no 
more, and nothing else — bars and nails ! But, 



LES TKOIS ROIS. 67 

like as happened to certain thirteen other distressed 
plants of different order and older date, taxed 
long and tried by obstructions and embarrassments 
as they had been, a Revolution was to be ; a day, 
glorious, of deliverance to come — and its dawn 
was at hand. 

The fact had got, at length, to be realized that 
iron could be applied to other uses than for hoop- 
ing wheels and shoeing horses — than for casting 
pots and molding kettles. Bridges, it was found, 
could be built with it; houses could be framed of 
it, and of it, wonderful ! mighty ships, to float 
the water — throwing the miraculous achievement 
of the prophet of old in the shade, who caused 
the axe to swim, — could be constructed. Then — 
In 1812 claim had been writ by one Oliver Evans, 
a Keely crook-stick of the day, that "a steam- 
engine could be made (he would wager $3,000 on 
it), that on a good level railway would run fifteen 
miles an hour.'' It took years to bring the in- 
credulous to stop laughing and start to thinking, 
that possibly, after all, there might be a something 
of method in Oliver's madness, and to put It to 
trial. At last they did. It stood the test ; sur- 
passing far what had been predicted of it, to the 
triumphant vindication of the old visionary, and 



68 LES TROIS ROIS. 

the confusion of his revilers. Rail, — to the 
superseding of all other, it was a fixed certainty 
now — were to be the roads of the country. To lay 
and equip them would call for enormous supplies 
of material. The rush upon the trade to meet 
the new demand, told upon the markets. Iron 
jumped at once into brisk request. Tons of it 
were wanted where pounds had been a drug 
before. The little ' smelting pots ' stuck scatter- 
ingly in away-off woods, to meet the exigency 
were too insignificant, too remote. Stacks of 
larger hold had to be ; and in the city, at home 
with the factories they were to feed. And so they 
presently were. The first erected (1859), was the 
' Clinton ' (Graff, Bennett & Co.) ; the twin 
^ Elizas' (Laughlin & Co.), and the two ^ Shoen- 
bergers' (Shoenberger, Blair & Co.) following 
next; the former in 1861, the latter in 1865. 
The daily out-put of the * Clinton' was something 
over 40 tons ; of the ^ Eliza's,' each, twice, and 
of the ^ Shoenberger' s' together, a little over three 
times, as much more. The total yield (daily) of 
the five amounted to 337 tons. This looked 
promising, very; so do blossoms in the May-days ; 
but blossoms are blossoms — and so are promises. 
For several years, thence on, no farther progress 



LES TEOIS ROIS. 69 

was made. The outside limit of wanted supply 
seemed to have been reached. Not that produc- 
tion was neck-and-neck up with the necessities of 
the time — far from it; but dregs of the dull 
leaven of the old lump of slow-goingness were 
still left ; business was not urged ; masters of 
furnaces and mills were content with what they 
were doing, and the concerned all around, satisfied 
with the good they had, did not care to strive for 
better. Then there were competitors now other- 
where in the field : wide-awakes, who, not having 
chances in equal, at all, still met the lack and 
more than made up the difference by what they 
owned and exerted in skill and enterprise. It 
was a time of ticklish moment to Pittsburg. The 
outlook was not encouraging. Failing for so long 
to raise herself above where the ' Elizas ' and 
the ' Shoenbergers ' had placed her, it seemed as 
though she had reached her height — a height with 
no higher beyond it — and that on the dead level 
there she was destined to stick. But heaven had 
appointed for her a loftier fortune, and the 
Melchior, the Iron King, elected to lift her to 
it, his due time arrived, appeared. 



70 LES TKOIS ROIS. 






Among the immigrants brought by ships from 
across the sea in 1847, was one, a worthy Scotch- 
man, a damask- weaver, of the name of Carnegie, 
who, wandering Westward in search of a home, 
found one to his choice at length, on a low-lying 
street in the ^ Bottom ' down by the river, in 
Allegheny. Mr. Carnegie brought with him a 
son, called Andrew; a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed 
boy, not yet quite entered upon his teens. His 
parents saw in Andrew a lad of more than common 
wit, and to improve it, as far as means and 
opportunity permitted, had him placed in 
charge of a school- master while yet in Scotland, 
who taught him in the rudiments of arithmetic 
and Latin; the only training, under the birch, 
he ever received. For riper education thereafter, 
the world was to be his school and experience his 
instructor. In the one, under stern discipline of 
the other, he tasked and toiled ; toiled and tasked 
— and waited to be rewarded. Reward, of the 
wanted sort, was slow to come ; so slow that his 
mother — a woman of sterling worth, from whom 
he inherited the virtues, those, the bright par- 
ticular, that shine conspicuous most iil his character 
— despaired at last of its coming at all. 



LES TEOIS ROIS. 71 

" Andy/' then one day said she, ' better gie 
ither ganging the gae-by ; tak' to loom and go ca' 
the shuttle content, e'en like the faither afore ye. 
It's a slow trade but a ser'ing ; and biding for 
a chancier ye may come by a waur." 

^^ Never you fret about that, mother," replied 
Andy gaily. ^^ Cheer up, for where there's a will 
there's a way, and — don't forget it — you'll have 
your coach and your four-in-hand for a fly through 
old Scotland yet, before you die." 

A time came when the Western Union Telegraph 
Company wanted a messenger boy. Andy applied 
for the situation, and got it. The position was one 
a little lower than he had been hoping for, but it 
was a beginning; an opening with a prospect 
before it, and that was enough. The short rests 
he had in the office between turns at message- 
carrying — rests such as the bee finds, between 
flights, in the flowers where the hidden sweets 
are — he improved ; attentive to the click of the 
operator's key, to seize the secret of its signaling 
and to catch the trick of the touch that did it. 
Soon mastered, these mysteries, he became an 
operator himself. Thos. A. Scott, Superintendent 
of the Western division of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad, wanting a clerk, saw in Andy, who as a 



72 LES TROIS EOIS. 

messenger boy had first attracted his notice, the 
person for the place, took him up and put him in 
it. Promotion was quick to follow. Scott's 
advancement, which presently came about, to a 
higher post in his company's service, left his 
place open, and the new secretary, not long after 
he had been well-settled in his chair, was ap- 
pointed to supply the vacancy. The vision, 
shadowy and vague erewhile, of the coach and 
the four-in-hand, in the far-off prospect began to 
take shape and look like real. Having reached 
about the ultimate of what he could hope to reach 
— his rope's end — in this field of adventure, his 
unresting ambition longed for some range of 
broader scope, where his energies might find full 
space for exercise, and he be whole free to use 
them ; as, though silken the chain and golden the 
collar that held him, he was not now. What he 
wanted, looking around for it, he saw — in iron. 
To melt it from the ore, to labor it, then to finish 
it into shape for use, was the work to take hold 
of. True he was without experience in the art ; 
knew practically nothing about it; but what of 
that? The lack could be supplied; not, perhaps, 
to satisfy enflrely, but to do — until he learned. 
The move duly considered, was resolved upon. 



LES TEOIS ROIS. 73 

He resigned his position on the rail-road ; took 
to him three young men of spirit akin to his 
own; with them formed a company — the 'Union 
Iron Mills' — and started upon his new career. 

Business of the new company began with the 
building of two rolling mills. These, while of 
fair capacity, were not above even with others of 
their class, but answered serviceably as training- 
places, or preparatory schools, wherein to educate 
and qualify for operations on the grander scale 
contemplated at first conceiving of the enterprise. 
Graduating day for that in time came around. 
Novices at the trade were finished master-work- 
men at length — fit to grapple with the herculean 
project; and at it they went. 

Furnaces as a first essential to the scheme, 
were to be provided. Accordingly (1872) ground 
was broken, builders were set to work, and the 
'Lucy No. 1,' a stack of unprecedented dimen- 
sions, and affording a yield never before equaled, 
was erected. But Lucy No. 1, with all her bear- 
ing ability could not deliver — had not the womb 
to hold — more than half the supply of pigs 
needed to feed the mills. Then, a little later 
on (1876), a companion to her, 'Lucy No. 2,' 
her like in height and size, was built. The pair 



74 LES TKOIS EOIS. 

turned out their nearly, if not altogether, four 
hundred tons of metal between sun-rise and 
sun-rise. The ' Elizas' were outdone two to 
one. Stripped of their laurels and shorn of 
their glory, the queens — they — that had been, 
retired before the sovereigns that were, to take 
place down among commoners of their class, as 
they might find it. Alas, for the Elizas ! — With 
its factories and its furnaces great grew to be the 
^ Union;' so great that in it the Work which its 
projector had in plan might have been esteemed 
as perfected, and that there it was to end. It was 
only fairly started. Finishing was yet to follow; 
but the time for it was now on — close on — and, 
in the erection of the ' Edgar Thomson Steel 
Works' (1879) it came. 

Iron for the laying of tracks on railroads, thus 
far, while to the greater extent furnished by mills 
at Johnstown, Harrisburg and Scranton, was ob- 
tained in liberal supply from England. The best 
— the home-made, worked from common native 
ores — was for its purpose bad enough ; the im- 
ported still worse. Rails rolled from it, too weak 
to resist, would flatten, fray at the edges, and not 
rarely, especially in frosty weather, snap short off 
under friction of the car-wheels. Accidents? 



LES TEOIS ROIS. 75 

more or less damaging always, usually disastrous, 
were, in consequence of these wearings and break- 
ings, of frequent, almost every-day occurrence. 
There was one way by which this unsatisfactory 
condition of aifairs could be corrected, and only 
one. Tougher material must be used in the mak- 
ing of rails : steel must take the place of iron. 
Mr. Carnegie was not long in catching hold of 
that fact. But steel was steel, and how to get 
it at a price the roads could aiford to pay, was the 
question. The problem was a puzzling one, but 
fortunately, through Bessemer's ingenuity, it was 
solved at last. That fact settled, Mr. Carnegie 
saw that the opportunity he had been waiting for 
was come ; seized it, improved it, and soon was 
ready to test the new process, and to practically 
initiate an industry which was to prove to Pitts- 
burg an acquisition of priceless value, and to its 
founder a god-send of fortune and of fame. 

The plant of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works 
(Carnegie, Bros. & Co.), consisted at first of three 
blast furnaces — the ^A,' ^B,' and ^C — and a mill 
for working up their metal, much the greater part 
of which was rolled into rails. The roads tried 
the rails, found that they were good and became 
customers crying in their demand for them. The 



76 LES TROIS ROIS. 

three furnaces did their best but were not able to 
supply the want. Two others in 1881 — the 'D' and 
' E ' — were added, and shortly after, still other two 
— the^F' and ^G/ Feeding these furnaces — 
they had ravenous appetites, which to satisfy and 
not impair digestion, required to be judiciously 
catered to — caution had to be observed in the 
ordering of their fare. Ores could be had for the 
digging at home in any wanted quantity, but they 
were not of untainted purity, and to qualify them 
for use had to be worked in combination with 
certain foreign others. These were sought for far 
and near, and brought in from wherever they 
could be found; from mines in Michigan, in 
Missouri, in Arkansas, in Georgia, in Virginia, 
and — across the Atlantic — in Sweden, in Spain, 
in Greece, in Elba, and from the shores of the 
Nile in Egypt. As multiplied the furnaces so 
proportionally widened and enlarged the industry 
to which they were contributary. Department 
after department was added to the mill. Opera- 
tions no longer confined to the rolling of rails 
were extended to the making of bars, beams, bolts, 
plates, sheets — -furnishings complete, in fine, of 
whatever form or size, from the massive most to 
the minutest, used in the construction of bridges, 



LES TEOIS EOIS. 77 

boats, buildings. Wherever a want was, or where, 
not being, was invented to be, which steel or iron 
could supply, the machinery and the men were 
placed to supply it. Thus enterprise succeeded 
enterprise, each new labor completed followed 
close behind by a newer begun. The Edgar 
Thomson\s one hundred and thirty-three acres of 
ground, expected when purchased to afford ample 
space for a lifetime to come at least, was soon, 
after every foot of it had been put to use, found 
to be too small to accommodate its business. A 
new field, the ' Homestead,' already planted, but 
with large room left for still wider occupation, 
was secured ; and so the point of progress was 
gained at which — only full fairly under headway 
at that — the Works stands to-day. As to the de- 
gree of that let us see. 

The premises of the company cover collect- 
ively an area of two hundred and fifty-three 
acres. On these there are nine blast-furnaces — 
the Lucys and Alpha-Betas — which consume 
daily three thousand tons of ore, two thousand 
seven hundred tons of coke, and nine hundred 
tons of lime; rendering a return of one thou- 
sand eight hundred tons of metal. To receive 
in the raw and deliver in the wrought these, 
8 



78 LES TROIS EOIS. 

involves, with other accessories, the handling 
of some nine thousand tons of matter. For the 
conveying of the same to and from the docks 
(private) on the rivers, and the depots on the 
several railways, thirty-three locomotives, five 
hundred cars, and twenty-six miles, all told, of 
track to run them on, are used. To do the work 
on the company's properties, in the mills and at 
the offices, holds in constant employment, a force 
of thirteen thousand men. The world of fact has 
its works and its workers in iron, the world of 
fable its ; but out of all the real of the one, or the 
mythical of the other, can there be found a mate 
to compare with this? It was a labor, the 
thought of old time was, possible but to a god, to 
forge his leven-bolts for Jove. Our Hephaestus, 
mortal born, would turn them out, of size to suit, 
fast as the Thunderer could brew the storms to 
play them in, nor think it a marvel of achieve- 
ment either. 

With the building of the first Lucy (1872), 
started a new epoch in the history of the iron 
trade in Pittsburg. During that single year the 
number of furnaces increased by four. After 
these, at intervals, one and another followed until 
now the list consists of twenty- one. In '72 the 



LES TROIS EOIS. 79 

yearly out-put of metal amounted to one hundred 
and twenty-three thousand tons; the year just 
euded^ when its results are figured out, will show 
a product of over one million tons. Add to this 
the metal imported, old rails, scraps, &c., and a 
total will appear of quite as much more. 

For the conversion of this mass of material 
into merchantable wares, the town is stacked all 
over with mills ; mills that work, and article, 
annually : two thousand four hundred tons into 
tacks ; twenty-five thousand tons into nails ; 
thirty-three thousand tons into spikes ; two thou- 
sand tons into chains ; fifteen thousand tons into 
wire for fences ; one hundred and fifty thousand 
tons into pipes ; eighteen thousand tons into steel 
springs; twenty-two thousand tons into agricul- 
tural implements ; one hundred and fifty thousand 
tons into castings ; and — ^who can tell how many 
tons? — into locomotives, steam engines, structural 
supplies, rails for railroads, and such-like exten- 
sively-employed and ponderously-wrought pro- 
ducts. The market for these, in the general, 
extends the land over from Maine to Mexico, 
from Florida to farthest North on the shore of its 
opposite ocean : in the particular, from Canada, 
continentally wide, to Chili — to Japan. Waters, 



80 LES TEOIS ROIS. 

like as of the Connecticut, the Susquehanna, the 
Ohio, the Missouri, the Mississippi, and, away 
on down, of the rivers of Brazil are arched by 
our bridges ; farms checkering the broad plains of 
the West, are fenced by our wires ; railways that 
connect the marts and conduct the commerce of 
both Americas, are run by our engines. So — 
with all besides of wliatever in its various 
branches demand invites and the hands of forty 
thousand workers can do to supply it — so moves 
the trade. 

It was a fanciful, improbable imagination, that 
of the boy Andy, with which he used to flatter 
himself, and comfort the heart of his fond, if 
sometimes doubting, old mother, of a time on in 
the times to be, when in a coach and with a four- 
in-hand they should have their fly through old 
Scotland together, and yet it came : trifling 
enough in itself to look at when it came, but as a 
fore-tokening in the boy of what was, following, 
to come in the bolder schemes and grander pro- 
gresses of the man, of significant account. The 
boy had looked but to the improving of his own 
lowly fortune, and — as was natural, since, then, it 
was all his world to him — that of his humble 



LES TROIS ROIS. 81 

household : the man, with a broader and more 
liberal thought, to the building up of a city, and 
the benefiting of its people — towards which, from 
the standing, visible proofs of what has been, 
judge, as may be judged, of what is in reservation 
to be done. 



82 LES TEOIS EOIS. 



III. 



A S in the treatment of iron fire is an always in- 
dispensable agent, each new handling of the 
substance in its altering passage from furnace to 
finishing-shop necessitating a new heating, it is of 
first importance to workers in it that fuel, good, 
cheap and plenty of it, should be conveniently 
procurable. Pittsburg, in that particular, has 
been peculiarly favored. Wood for charcoal, in 
the charcoal days, could be had from wild lands 
lying all around where furnaces were — too rugged 
and thin of soil to be of value for any other use 
— at a cost of little more than was paid for 
the cutting. When, in time, the accessible por- 
tions of these forest ranges were chopped bare, the 
consumers had for other recourse to turn to, their 
coal. The change was not one that, left to choice, 
they would, indeed, have chosen ; they preferred 
their carbon as they did their beef, in the fresh, 
freshly roasted, rather than in the stale, hard dry; 
but it was carbon all the same — food good enough 
for the furnaces, when they got used to it, and 



LES TEOIS KOIS. 83 

they did not complain. They did not complain, 
because there was the comforting feature about it 
that famine from failure was not to be feared. 
There was no chance of that. The supply was 
more than abundant, and not to be exhausted. 
Bettering of advantage could not be asked — could 
not be expected; unless the impossible should be 
proved feasible, and it were found that fires might 
be kept up without fuel at all. And that was to 
be ; without the asking, against the expecting — 
Providence had so, wonderfully, ordered — that 
was to be. 

That down in the Earth's bosom, where its 
lungs are, there dwells an air, of kin but not of 
kind to that we breathe ; that it rests there as it 
has rested for ages, sealed up tight and fast ; that 
it is highly inflammable, and that it burns with 
a heat hotly suggestive of the hell it seems 
to start from, are facts not newly come to light 
only now. Guyasutha, the Mingo, could have 
told of it a hundred and fifty years ago. It was 
not so hermetically sealed in, but that here and 
there, through chance crannies, it could find 
escape, not noticeable, because signless, on dry 
surfaces, but easily to be detected in still pools 



84 LES TROIS ROIS. 

along the courses of streams. So, after he had 
sunk the warrior in the tradesman, Cornplanter, 
the Senecan, dipping blankets to gather petro- 
leum from his vats in Oil Creek, used to see it 
spring from the sand and rise bubbling up through 
the water. When, later, the licks along shore of 
the Allegheny, indicated that salt might be found 
down under ground, and explorers began to bore 
for it, farther, stronger, and rather startling evi- 
dence of it appeared. The outer shell of its stony 
casing pierced through, a freer vent than the 
cramped one of a crack in the rocks, was afforded, 
and out it came, not in bubbles, such as a boy 
might blow of suds from the bowl of a pipe, but 
in a continuous, gushing flow. 

Now and then when a livelier vein was tapped, 
it rushed so as to lift high the water with it 
out of the hole. Lewis Peterson struck such a 
well on his grounds near Tarentum ; and when 
innocents from abroad came in, as with the touch 
of a match he lit the jet and up it flashed, a 
mingled fountain of fire and water, imagine 
their astonishment at sight of the wonder ! That 
was forty years ago, and still the well flows, and 
still it will burn, put the lucifer to it, as freely as 
ever. 



LES TROIS ROIS. 85 

Later again, when petroleum began to be 
sought for, and wells were drilled below salt- 
water level, deep down through the underlying 
rocks, a discovery followed that far oat- 
wondered the wonder at Tarentum. The steel 
bit of the driller, driven on, hit straight at 
last the ^ Sand,^ the secret hold of the mysterious 
air, when, a door of escape thus 0})ened, like the 
wind let loose from the bag of ^olus, out it Hew. 
Not silently and temperately, like as from the 
^ Peterson,' but with a roar as of thunder, and a 
rush as of a cyclone, out it flew — flew, lifting on 
its wing as it rose, through fifteen hundred feet 
of hole, the drill, lightly, as though its three 
thousand pounds of solid iron were but of feather 
weight; and like a feather flung it up and tossed 
it out at top. Fired, as it flashed high overhead, 
it was a sight to see— the narrow, faint-blue jet, 
scarcely visible at bottom, deepening into a broad 
red blaze as it mounted; the stalk of the shoot 
throwing out its branches, the branches their 
leaves — snapped from their stems, at times, ere 
more than formed, and whirled curling ofl* in air 
to burn for an instant, instantly then to vanish ; 
the '^ plant,' its full height reached, opening out 
at top into flower — a gigantic, flagrant, flaming 



86 LES TEOIS EOIS. 

flower, such as Proserpine might grow in her 
hot- bed to pluck, when of a mind to, for a lover 
— Pluto, if you please — to sport in his button- 
hole ; — a famous sight to see ! And that was 
about all that was made of it— a spectacular 
oddity; a something curious to look at ; some- 
thing lal-fnl to admire; like a comet, or an 
Aurora-boreal is, or a Star of Bethlehem ; that, 
and only that. But if all that was, it was not all 
that could be, not all that was destined to be, 
made of it; although somewhat long might be 
the waiting ere the making came about. 

Among others, not few, of the burning springs 
long known about, is one in Tupper Creek, a 
small stream running near by Westfield, a thriving 
town in Chautauqua County, New York, and 
emptying half a mile further on into Lake Erie. 
In 1828 Thomas B. Campbell, a citizen of West- 
field, received authority from Washington to erect 
a light-house at the entrance of Barcelona Harbor, 
close upon which the town stands. Mr. Campbell 
was a man, one of your considering, calculating 
kind, who could indeed enjoy a thing of beauty 
for its beauty, but who, having an eye to that, 
had a pair of them on the look-out always for 
the discovery of some secret property or other, 



LES TROIS ROIS. 87 

good for use, he might suspect to lie under it. 
His job of the light-house completed, passing one 
night by the Burning Spring, he paused to look at 
it, and looking, began to think : here was that, 
running to waste, which the light-house wanted ; 
which it must have, and which it would pay 

money to get. Was it possible to ? And he 

kept on thinking, and with his pair of eyes kept 
on looking, until he thought and saw it out. It 
was possible. 

Presently, then, he forwarded a letter to Gov- 
ernment containing a proposal for supplying 
the light-house with light. The proposal was 
accepted^ and the Judge (Mr. Campbell was 
an Associate Judge in the court of his county) 
set to work to carry out his part of the contract. 
He purchased an empty fish-barrel from his 
grocer, sawed it in two, and placing one of the 
halves, like a hat, over the head of the fountain, 
made of it a receiver to gather in and hold the 
vapor. Pump-logs, jointed end to end together, 
a mile's length of them, w^ere laid, a channel of 
conveyance between fountain and light-house 
opened, and the work was done. The Court knew 
itself; its judgment was sustained, confirmed. 
The vanity of the Burning Spring was proved to 



88 LES TEOIS EOIS. 

be not all a vanity ; there was gold in its glitter. 
Tapper Creek, indeed, lost its attraction — its light, 
alas ! hid under a bushel — but Barcelona had its 
beacon. 

For thirty years, with a blaze ^ not quenched 
day nor night,' and that never abated, the 
beacon burned ; for thirty years longer it would 
have gone on burning, only that then, the 
Lake Shore Railroad coming in to steal away 
trade from the ships, there was nothing to harbor, 
and the port was abandoned. But the light, put 
out at the light-house, was not so to be put down. 
Dismissed the civil service, it was taken into the 
social ; where it still holds, doing duty in the 
public schools and in the churches ; in houses and 
on the streets, and only not^ where Government 
that paid for it liberally enough to the father, 
erewhile keeper of the light-house, neglects un- 
graciously now to furnish it to his son — its only 
representative the town has — in the Post-office. 

One would suppose that after having thus been 
tried and proved, the new illuminant would have 
sprung into favor, and been generally adopted, at 
once. So perhaps it might, only that the other 
springs known of were away too far from the 
Lake, down inland, on creeks and rivers where 



LES:TK0IS ROIS. 89 

there were no harbors, consequently no light- 
houses to beacon, and where the half-red white 
men, and the half-white red men inhabiting, lit 
their cabins with pine- knots, when lighted at all, 
and neither looked nor longed for anything better. 
This state of affairs, however, could not last 
always. Light, perhaps, might not soon be in 
request, among the thinly-scattered settlements 
there, but its co-existent element — heat — would, 
and the time was surely to be, when so generous 
a contributor to it must come into demand. 

When the discovery of petroleum in the Upper 
Allegheny region came about, in 1859, borers after 
it were much annoyed by the forcible entry into 
their wells of this villainous vapor, interfering as 
it did, often quite seriously, with their operations. 
To catch and convey it off, out of their way, as 
by contrivance they at length managed to do, was 
all they cared about. Once in a while an operator 
would introduce and use it in his engine-room; 
once in a while convey it through a pipe into his 
shanty, to heat the pot and the pan he boiled his 
coffee, and fried his eggs and bacon in ; once in a 
while, when the well was near the tavern, the 
blacksmith-shop, and the two or three saloons 
they called a town, tube it to the front of one or 
9 



90 LES TEOIS KOIS. 

the other, so that in the night customers from the 
neighboring oil-fields, or chance travelers belated 
on the road, might see where the town was, and 
be guided to it. With these its use began — for 
fifteen years to find no improvement, to make no 
advance. 

It happened, then, that John W. Chalfant went 
forth a-journeying one day into a land, in Butler 
County, where these flaming geysers were, and 
where he saw them play. Like the Chautauqua 
judge — he did not know the judge; had never 
heard tell of the Burning Spring at Westfield, 
nor of the light-house at Barcelona Harbor, nor 
of the pump-logs; but, of a same shrewdly- 
observant habit — like the judge he looked, and 
thought; thought, now of those great fountains 
of fire, wastino; their flao-rance on the desert air of 
Butler shire ; now of Spang, Chalfant & Co.'s 
iron mills, where what was worthless here, would 
come into such fine service there. Then he too, 
like the judge, began to wonder : Was it possible 

to ? at end, like the judge, to resolve : it was 

possible. To make up his mind about it, was to 
put his hand to it. There was a well there, at 
Lardentown, where he was, that would suit for 
what he wanted, and could be had. It was 



LES TROIS ROIS. 91 

secured. Rights of way across farms and cran- 
berry fields were obtained; trenches were dug, 
and a duct of solid iron laid — from its pylorus at 
Lardentown reaching over a stretch of seventeen 
miles to its vent under the boilers of the ^ Etna 
Mills' at Pittsburg. The experiment succeeded 
perfectly; the vapor, in spite of the rubs and 
resistances met from the twists and turns in the 
conductor, darting through at the rate of a mile 
to the minute, and with no appreciable diminution 
to its volume. This was in the Autumn of 1875 
— twelve years and more ago ; but the fires first 
lighted then are burning still, and the throat 
that lent the breath to kindle them into life, 
still blows to keep them living, with a force 
as vigorous as ever. 

No clearer proof of the fitness for use of 
Natural Gas — -so, now, after this first real taming 
and training of it to service, the strange air got 
to be called — -could be offered ; and yet the force 
of it was not felt. — Nor, until the appointed time 
should bring the appointed man — him, the Belt- 
hazar — Fire King — last of the Royal Three — 
for the work, was it to be ; but that was at hand. 






92 LES TROIS ROIS. 

When, in 1856, Geoege Westinghouse, Jr., a 
lad ten years old, was taken over from Central 
Bridge, Schoharie County, his birth-place, to 
Schenectady, N. Y., and put under training at the 
high-school there, he was, like other well-behaved 
boys, regular in his attendance, mindful of his 
lessons, and as ready to intelligently respond when 
put to question in the task-room as were any, the 
promptest, besides among his class-mates. But 
the regulation hours at the high-school were not 
his exclusive ones out of the day's dozen devoted 
to learning. In fact it might be said of him that 
his off-hours were the hours when he was chiefly 
on, and that he really was most at school when 
not at school at all. His father had been the 
builder, and was master of the ^ Schenectady 
Agricultural Works,' an establishment of wide 
repute, and that lent largely towards furnishing 
its fame for enterprise to the city. Thither when 
out from under his tutor's charge, and at liberty 
to dispose of his time as pleased him, it was his 
custom to resort ; not that he had no heart, nor 
hand, for sports such as were the delight of his 
fellows, — for he could handle a bat and pull an 
oar to fair sharing of honors at both with the 



LES TEOIS EOIS. 93 

best of them — but that there, P^T^^^g ^^^^^ ^^^^ 
mysteries of machiDes, and accustoming him to 
the art of making them, or improving them when 
made — working for pastime with the workers for 
profit — he found entertainment more to his 
choice. Old hands, graduates in experience at 
the trade, as they witnessed the readiness with 
which he took to his tools, and the skill with 
which he manipulated them, wondered ; and still 
their wonder grew, when, ere long, they saw him 
put the finishing touches to a steam-engine — a 
work, in piece and in whole, all of his own 
modeling and building, and he a boy not yet in 
his teens. He continued on under training at 
these his two schools, the preceptive and the 
practical, thus, until he felt himself old enough, 
at sixteen, to take part in the war. After two 
years — the last two of the Eebellion — spent in 
active service in the army, he returned to resume 
his forsaken place in the Works ; to take up his 
tools, and start in afresh to scheme, and plan, and 
experiment as before. 

Among his contrivances was one particularly 
promising — a ' reversible steel frog,' (^ frog ' cor- 
rupted from ^ frush' ; an iron piece thus named 
from its resemblance to the horny growth, so 



94 LES TKOIS ROIS. 

called, in the sole of a horse's hoof, and used 
in the angles at crossings of rail-roads, to 
prevent wheels from jumping the track), to 
arrange to best advantage for the manufac- 
ture and sale of which was the consideration 
that, in 1868, brought him to Pittsburg. This 
was his first successful- stroke at invention. A 
next, and more important one, followed. Read- 
ing his newspaper one morning, a letter from a 
traveler in Italy fell under his eye, containing 
reference to the Mont Cenis tunnel, then in pro- 
cess of excavation, with a mention of ^ compressed 
air' as the power used in the prosecution of the 
work. The thought flashed on him — Could not 
the same force be brought as well to work the 
brakes on a train of cars ? the necessity of an 
appliance for that purpose, other and better than 
the primitive and imperfectly-operative one in 
use, having long been felt. His one or two 
friends consulted did not favorably consider, in 
fact were disposed to make light of, the idea. To 
think of controlling the movements, the startings 
and the stoppings, of a train by means of an 
India-rubber tube, hung and strung, like a 
Bologna sausage, along the cars' bottoms ! It was 
absurd. But he tried it nevertheless ; tried it — 



LES TROIS ROIS. 95 

and the ^ Westinghouse Air-brake ' was what 
came of it. 

His next important adventure was one that 
turned up, as things, especially rare things, usu- 
ally do turn up, by accident. 

When petroleum was discovered in the new 
fields near Pittsburg, some three years ago, Mr. 
Westinghouse, interested like the rest of our local 
mankind in the finding, was led to believe that, 
possibly, the fluid might be had at home as well 
as in adjoining Washington County, if one were 
only to light on the right place and bore for it. 
He decided to test the matter; had the timbers 
prepared, and proceeded to plant a derrick at a 
chosen spot on his own private grounds in an 
upper ward of the city. The drill was started 
(December, 1883), and at a depth of 1560 feet a 
vein was struck, not of oil as was anticipated, but 
— -what had not been counted upon as among 
contingencies — -of gas. Gas was not what he was 
after, not what he wanted ; but there it was, and 
now that he had it, not inclining to let it run to 
waste, he began to consider what could be made 
of it. To resolve that question to his mind, time 
for reflection was necessary. 

Meanwhile borers, busy as beetles, were else- 



96 LES TEOIS EOIS. 

where abroad and at work. Derrick after derrick 
started up; well after well started down. Hill- 
sides and bottoms lying along rivers and creeks, 
wherever creeks and rivers ran, were perforated 
all over with the one, while, thick-planted, 
whole-seen in fields, half-hid in woods, tall and 
ghostly, like obelisks in skeleton, towered on every 
hand the bare-ribbed shafts of the other. Izi the 
Washington County district success could be de- 
pended upon. A main artery of the fluid seemed 
to be seated there, which was sure to flaw with 
every probe of the driller's lance. Outside of 
that favored spot was outside of what enriched it. 
The oleo-marginal line appeared to be reached, 
with no beyond to it, at the line of the county. 
But searches spent in this outer territory were not 
to be without their findings — if not of oil, of 
that which was to prove its no less precious sister- 
substitute — gas. If the earth, there, had no 
womb for the one, it had a stomach charged, 
ready to burst, with the other. As hole after 
hole was chiseled down, gush after gush of it 
sprang up. Strike where one would, he was sure 
to hit it. Taking fire, as all were quite certain 
to, the flames would shoot up twenty, thirty, forty 
feet in air; their light, broad-cast, at night, out- 



LES TKOIS EOIS. 97 

shining the moon's, and paling that of the dawn 
at morning. To its field, and to its yield, there 
was no limit. 

These new discoveries happened just in time 
for Mr. Westinghouse's purpose. Meditating 
over his ^ strike,' a scheme had occurred to him 
so fair of promise as to almost persuade him to, 
at once, adopt and put it through. But two 
questions arose that caused him to hesitate : Could 
a supply of gas, enough for the purpose projected 
— calling for more than he had — be found, and, 
found, would it hold out ? The result of ex- 
periments at Canonsburg (not within the oil belt) 
in Washington County, Murrysville in West- 
moreland, Baden in Beaver, and Sewickley in 
Allegheny (all around and within a radius of 
thirty miles of Pittsburg), settled the one point, 
and the broad extent of the bearing-area thus 
indicated, gave sufficient assurance of the other. 
Spang, Chalfant & Co. had been content to provide 
for themselves alone. Mr. Westinghouse proposed 
the more comprehensive work of concentrating 
the out-put of a sufficient number of wells and 
supplying all the factories, and all the families 
besides, in the two cities. Could the factories, 
and the families, be induced to use it ? Not if 



98 LES TROIS ROIS. 

they bad to act for themselves and be their own 
carriers — for men used to old ways, like dogs, are 
lazy to learn new — but let it be delivered at their 
doors — offered to them without the going after — 
and they would. His project ripe for execution, 
decisive action followed. The capital stock of 
the ^' Philadelphia Company,'^ to secure the only 
thing of value left to it — its charter — was bought 
up, the old office at Philadelphia closed, and a 
new one " for the purpose of conducting a 
Natural Gas business," opened at Pittsburg. The 
necessary authority from Councils was obtained, 
and before the good people of the city well knew 
why, the work of trenching the streets for the 
laying of pipes, was begun. 

It required no forcing to bring the gas into 
use. The good people were not only willing, 
they were eager to have it. Mains for its delivery 
could not be set fast enough to meet the urgency 
of dwellers along their lines, waiting to tap them. 
Mills, crowded, toiled night and day to supply 
tubes; plumbers, from earliest early to latest late 
of hours, to place them. A novelty first, to 
attract, tried, it became a necessity. House- 
keepers cried for it ; without it would not be 
comforted. Owners of works that had held 



LES TEOIS KOIS. 99 

dilatorily back, waiting to be served, now that 
they were served saw the pricelessly precious 
thing it was, and took to it greedily. The Phila- 
delphia Company, anticipating a large patronage, 
had made liberal provision to meet it, but to be 
fully prepared for all possible contingencies, kept 
on adding to their lands, their mains and their 
fountains of supply. The work, entered upon 
with so much spirit, was continued with unabated 
activity, until now, after three years, they have 
to show for it, the owning, on lease and by pur- 
chase, of fifty-six thousand acres of ground, one 
hundred producing wells, and a plant of four 
hundred and fifty miles of pipe. The grounds, 
it will be noticed, are very moderately taxed, 
there being an average of but one well to five 
hundred and sixty acres — an area broad enough 
to, alone, afford more than room for the one 
hundred distributed over the whole. Other com- 
panies — the ^ Allegheny Heating,' the ' Baden,' 
the 'Chartiers Valley,' the ^ Peoples,' the 'Peo- 
ple's Pipage' — following the lead of the Phila- 
delphia, have since entered the field, and now 
contribute their share, amounting all together, to 
about half that of the Philadelphia, to the general 
service. Abundantly thus provided for, the use 



100 LES TROIS ROIS. 

of other fuel has ceased. Coal will still, indeed, 
hold place as heretofore in other markets, but at 
home its grasp is lost. The last of fires of its 
supplying have burned out — are whole extin- 
guished, never to be lighted more. 

The stroke of enterprise which brought to 
pass this result has proved to Pittsburg one of 
incalculable value. It has given to her that 
which, as rarest of the rare good things reserved 
of Providence for special bestowing, had the 
choice been hers, she would have chosen — a fire 
that could be trusted to do the various service 
required of it; to do it well, and, still more to 
purpose, at a low cost — as near a no-cost as 
possible. In all these particulars her desire has 
been more than met. The old fire worked to fair 
benefit, but at a round price to its employers. It 
was a ravenous consumer ; ate with a greed that 
never was satisfied ; demanded the best of food, 
and would ^strike' any instant when attempted to 
be run on short rations. The new needs no 
catering to, nor caring for ; it feeds on air and 
helps itself; it seeks no rest, wants none, because 
it finds best its ease when busiest in action. Under 
instant and absolute control, it can be adjusted at 
a touch to any degree of burning — fierce, if you 



LES TROIS ROIS. 101 

will, as that of a furnace, or faint, if you like, as 
a taper's, lit of a night to dot the dark in 
a lady's chamber. 

With this, the one thing only wanted for 
her perfect equipment, now that she has it, 
Pittsburg can rest content. It arms her with 
a power which assures to her foremost place 
in her domain of enterprise — a place to occupy 
without a rival ; to hold in exclusive undivided 
possession, unchallengeably her own. 

Such, in the light of its fires, looking forth 
from my window, is what I see in that I see of 
the city reaching out before me. Pictures re- 
flective of what in the hard times of its early 
experience it was ; of its toilsome progresses ; its 
gains in growth, in enterprise, in wealth, steadily 
all the time, if sometimes haltingly made. Pic- 
tures of what it is; its grounds penned in by no 
contracted corporate lines, but extending far, far- 
ther than eye can see, along the bottoms by the rivers, 
up the bordering steeps, and back at their tops away 
and away ; its factories, furnaces, mills, thick- 
planted over all, and, packed in between, the 
dwellings of the now four hundred thousand souls 
10 



102 LES TROIS ROIS. 

that furnish their quotas to man them. Pictures 
prophetic of what it is to be ; with the elements, 
Earth with its resources, iVir, Fire, Water, with 
their forces, held all in bond to wait upon its 
bidding, and with its ministering, all-mighty 
Magi — its Gaspar, Melchior, Belthazar — Les 
Trois Rois — who tamed and trained them to it, 
alive to appoint their work and regulate their 
service — pictures, not to be copied, of what it is 
to be! 



Tom the Tinker. 



TOM THE TINKER. 



rnOM THE Tinker has achieved for him- 
self a mention in history. Although the 
commotion on the waves of which he was lifted 
into notice was a local one, of transient duration, 
and in itself not specially characterized by extra- 
ordinary incident, yet the circumstances of the 
time imparted, and still secure to it, a deeply-felt 
and general interest. The country was but in the 
infancy of its independence; the experiment of a 
popular government remained to be tested; and 
the citizens naturally looked with eagerness to- 
ward the result of this first issue raised between 
Law and 'Liberty' under the new regime. Tom 
the Tinker had battled manfully, without doubt, 
against the king. Now that, by right of conquest, 
Tom was a sovereign, could he be brought, when 
he had no relish for it, to realize the fact that he 
was also a subject? That was a problem which 
the Whisky Insurrection was to solve. 



106 TOM THE TINKEK. 

To appreciate adequately the points involved 
in this seditionary movement^ a sketch of its pro- 
gress should be anticipated by a picture of the 
scene of its event, of the people active in it, and 
of their social and domestic ways of life, as 
gathered from the lips of the few living witnesses 
left of the time.* 

Pittsburg, shortly after the close of the Revo- 
lutionary War, sustained a metropolitan relation 
to the greatly scattered settlements of the Western 
frontier. At that time it was a mere village, 
with a population of perhaps one thousand souls. 
The houses composing it were built of logs, with 
the exception of two — Kirkpatrick's and Neville's, 
which were constructed, aristocratically, of clap- 
boards — and clustered chiefly along the Monon- 
gahela River and toward its point of junction with 
the Allegheny. Overgrowing the low ground in 
the rear of the town, and reachino; along^ the lat- 
ter-mentioned river, was the King's Orchard, con- 
sisting of about a hundred apple trees, seedlings 
of Norman parentage, and planted by the French 
during their occupancy of Fort Du Quesne. 

* At the date of the first appearance of this sketch, 'liv- 
ing,' these witnesses, but all, long since, dead. 



TOM THE TINKEE. 107 

Spreading from the orchard eastwardly, was a 
broad, vacant space, used as a race-course. Horse- 
racing was the favorite amusement of the people. 
There were those who favored bear-baiting, and 
others of a more gentle temper who were content 
with wrestling, boxing (withoutgloves), playing at 
cudgels, and the like; but horses were the ruling 
fancy, and this was the arena upon which their 
mettle was tried Back of the race-course, at the 
base of Grant's Hill, and under shadow of the 
oaks that crowned its brow, stood the loo- store 
room, famous among traders, of Le Bat. Hither, 
of wont, assembled the yeomanry with their bur- 
dens of corn and rye from the scattered clearings 
along the valleys and uplands of the Mononga- 
hela; hither resorted the trapper with his skins 
of beaver and muskrat ; the hunter with his hides 
of bear and fox and deer from the far-off regions 
of the upper Al-lo-ga-nee (the ^Beautiful,' for the 
title, now limited to the Ohio, applied then to the 
main water course that supplies it as well); and 
higher the Indian floated down in his canoe from 
Wenango (French) and Oil Creek, with his moc- 
casins, maple sugar, beeswax and his petroleum, 
all to bargain off in barter for powder, tobacco, 
whisky and such like needful commodities; and 



108 TOM THE TINKEK. 

Le Bat grew prosperous and purse-proud by the 
commerce. 

The town lacked not in taverns for the accom- 
modation of patrons. First^ in point of time, was 
that of Black Charley, on Water Street, whose 
white wife (the ^Institution' existing then in 
Pennsylvania, too!j was famous for her table, and 
whose self was a model among landlords. Proud 
was Charley of his place and of his profession, 
and right good reason ruled there that he should 
be. Was not his house, humble as it was, the 
distinguished resort of the royal of the land? 
Had not King Shingiss patronized his premises, 
and swapped wampum for what it would fetch at 
his bar ? Had not Queen Aliquippa, whose name 
is perpetuated on steamboats, restaurants and 
cigar boxes to the present day, got drunk on his 
liquor, sworn majestic oaths in broken English 
under his roof, and slept herself into soberness on 
the bench at his door? Had not the Demosthenes 
of his tribe imbibed from his pewter — perhaps 
from his hospitality caught inspiration, for ^^ I 
appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered 
Logan's cabin hungry ? '' and so on ; the effort 
which, under reconstruction of Jefferson's pen, 
more ably attempted than honestly, has crowned 



TOM THE TINKEE. 109 

him with an immortality ? And Guyasutha, chief 
of the Senecas and compeer of Pontiac, too — 
weak, wasted old ruin of a once magnificent man, 
who, as well as King and Queen, had hobnobbed 
with Washington, drunk rum with him out of 
the same canteen, and by him been honored with 
historic mention — had he not daily, through whole 
seasons, crossed his threshold and quaffed of his 
Monongahela, wasting the time between drinks 
out in the sun, making bows and arrows for the 
town-boys, and teaching them the proper method 
of their use? Ay, and whether or not to the 
relish of Davy Duncan, a later and neighboring 
competitor, Charlie was not slow to plume him- 
self upon the distinction implied by the patronage. 
Then there was the inn kept by John Mc- 
Master, sign of the Black Bear, on the north-east 
corner of the Diamond and Market Street, where 
were wont to congregate the soldiers of the 
garrison and the tradesmen from their shops, to 
enjoy at his benches and over his bowls their times 
of stolen leisure — the oft-recurring opportunities 
being made none the less attractive by the presence 
of blind Dennis Loughey and Crowder the fiddler, 
who, the one with his hornpipes, and the other 
with his ballads about highwaymen and horse 



no , TOM THE TINKER 

thieves^ tickled the ears of the listeners, or stirred 
their feet into responsive action, vastly to the 
common rapture, as well as to the substantial ad- 
vantage of the house. 

But first and foremost of all was what was 
called the Butler House while under the manage- 
ment of Patrick — familiarly Pat — on the corner 
of Market and Fourth Streets, near by a brick 
redoubt built by the British, but which, conse- 
quent upon his demise, and when conducted by 
his admirable relict, was better known as Molly 
Murphy's. The military disaster following the 
attack of the Miami Indians in 1791 so wrought 
upon her enthusiasm that she employed the 
services of a native artist, and had presently 
swinging before her premises, immensely to her 
satisfaction as well as to the popular admiration, 
a great sign illuminated with a picture, done in 
dashing colors, of Saint Clair's defeat— ^or defate, 
as the text of the original copy had it. Molly 
was a woman of parts, and knew how to ' keep 
a hotel.' Eough of manner, and perhaps more 
emphatic than choice in speech — >the confirmed 
habit, at length, of a deportment assumed at first 
to hold the rude guests she had to deal with 
under proper discipline — she was, nevertheless, 



TOM THE TINKER. Ill 

generous of heart and of pure reputation. Her 
house was the main depot of commerce between 
the frontier at large and the East. Thither con- 
centrated, principally, the traders from all along 
range of sunset. Thence were the goods for ex- 
port forwarded to their destination, and thence 
the slender supplies of return freight delivered 
to Le Bat, Captain Wilson and the few other 
operators and retailers in town, or carried piece- 
meal away by individual country purchasers to 
their several homes in the wilderness. A hint as 
to the quality of the frequenters of its various tav- 
erns affords the readiest and most comprehensive 
suggestion of the general character of the inhabit- 
ants of the town. 

The style of life in the country was simple in 
the extreme. The population was composed, 
almost exclusively, of Scotch-Irish — a stout and 
stubborn race, of plain manners, frugal habits, 
devoted in their clannish attachments, fantastically 
formalistic in their very repudiations of form, 
rigidly righteous in their renunciations of the 
world, the flesh and the devil ; energetic, indus- 
trious and fearless — the character of all others 
befitting the pioneer, who had, literally, to hew 
out his farm and his home from primeval forests. 



112 TOM THE TINKER 

and to protect them afterward, at peril of life, 
from the murderous assaults of savages. The 
first step of the newly arrived immigrant was to 
fix upon a congenial neighborhood somewhere, 
by common preference in the valley or on the 
adjacent uplands of the Monongahela ; the next, 
armed with rifle, balls, powder and tomahawk, 
and accompanied by a settler, to steer for such 
tracts in the wilds as were unclaimed, when, 
having stumbled upon an inviting locality, he 
would proceed to mark the boundaries of his 
self- appropriated farm. Corner trees were selected 
and blazed on two sides, the north and east, say, 
or similarly toward any other points of the com- 
pass, as the case might be, and so on, until all the 
angles of the property were in like manner 
defined. These were known as ^tomahawk im- 
provements,' and constituted a title as valid as 
any deed could give. Much of the choicest 
property of the region is held to-day upon no 
better warranty. Government received no re- 
compense for the lands thus claimed and taken. 

The third movement was to build* a house. 
This was generally accomplished in about two 
days. The neighbors — that is to say, the settlers 
within a circuit of perhaps ten or fifteen miles — 



TOM THE TINKEB. 113 

collecting together, divided themselves into gangs; 
one to cut logs in the forest, a second to haul 
them to the site selected for the proposed struc- 
ture, and a third, composed of such as were 
skillful in the handling of an axe, to notch them, 
or, selecting the straightest grained, to split them 
into slabs or clapboards. The materials having 
been gathered and prepared, the logs were lifted 
to- their places in the walls. At the proper 
height, some eight or ten feet from the ground, 
the end walls were narrowed in with every suc- 
cessive layer bringing the logs at the sides nearer 
together until the order of contraction culminated 
at length in a single one on the top. Over these 
convergent inclinations the clapboards, cut in 
four-feet lengths, were laid, each range over- 
lapping the one below it, and all held in their 
places by ' weight-poles ^ laid across at proper dis- 
tances, and firmly secured by wooden pins to the 
underlying timbers. This composed the roof. A 
place for a door was then cut out of one side, the 
logs severed for this purpose being sustained in 
their places by pins driven through the upright 
slabs which formed the door-frame. The door 
itself was made of split timber, and was hung 
and fastened with wooden hinges and a latch. 
11 



114 TOM THE TINKER. 

Not a nail or scrap of iron was nsed in all the 
building. At an end of the cabin another open- 
ing was made for the chimney. This was also 
built of logs on the outside, but close against the 
wall, ^chunked' and daubed with billets of wood 
and mortar, and lined with a few stones to protect 
the back and jambs from fire. When there was 
any other than an earthen floor, it was laid some- 
times of trees split, with the bark side uppermost, 
and again of whole logs planted side by side, and 
chipped with an adze as nearly to a level as the 
implement and the skill with which it was wielded 
would admit of. A slab table, a three-legged 
stool or two and a bench made up the inventory 
of furniture. Wooden pins, varied for certain 
uses by bucks' horns, inserted in the wall, 
answered the several purposes of supports for 
shelves, rests for rifles, pegs for the suspension of 
shot-pouches, shirts, gowns, etc., and slantingly 
ranged at convenient distances, as a means of 
passage up to the hatchway opening into the loft. 
For this latter purpose ladders were sometimes 
used, the parties ascending drawing them up after 
them as a measure of protection. Pins of a 
greater length, inserted in like manner, and sup- 
ported at the other end, by forked sticks resting 



TOM THE TINKER. 115 

on the floor, the frame thus formed being overlaid 
with slabs, constituted their bedsteads; and yet 
there were cases when this approximation to 
luxurious use was contemptuously declined. In 
such instances, gumtree logs, cut the desired 
length, hollowed out, and half enclosed w^ith a 
board at one end, were employed as a substitute. 
Into these, rolled .out and ranged with the open 
end next the fire, would the members of the 
household crawl, and comfortably repose through 
the long cold nights of winter. In the morning 
they would be gathered up and planted, endwise, 
out of the way in a corner of the cabin. Many 
of the families were without any culinary utensils 
whatever, unless a pewter plate and a horn spoon 
should fall under that designation. They baked 
their johnny-cakes on a board before the fire, and 
their steaks of bear and venison, or their carcasses 
of pheasant and wild turkey (domestic fowls of 
any sort were unknown), on the coals. A gourd 
containing salt was suspended by a string against 
the wall, out of which the needed supplies of the 
precious commodity were sparingly extracted ; 
and that, too, with inexhaustible fountains of the 
mineral, had they but known it, waiting to be 
tapped right under their feet. 



116 TOM THE TINKER. 

For dress, the men wore hunting shirts of 
linsey-woolsey, with or without capes as taste 
inclined, and bordered among the more elegantly 
disposed with a fringe of some boldly contrasted 
color — generally red on a garment of blue, or 
blue on a cloth of white. These shirts were 
tucked in, and fastened around the loins with a 
raw-hide rope belt. The bosom answered the 
purpose of a huge pocket for storing away tow, 
tobacco, a flask and what not, while the belt was 
made to support a sheathed knife and a tomahawk. 
Moccasins were exclusively worn on the feet. The 
deer skins out of which they were wrought were 
tanned from the brains of the creatures from 
which they were stripped, it being the accepted 
theory of the frontier that ^ the brains of any 
animal is the best material to tan its own hide 
with.' Their caps were made of fox-skins. 
Women dressed in petticoats and short gowns of 
the same material worn by the men. The petti- 
coat was secured around the hips with drawing 
strings, the skirt of the short gown reaching 
below, somewhat like a sacque of the present 
day, and concealing the tie. They wore their 
hair combed up behind and massed into a sort of 
waterfall in front. Their hats were made of 



TOM THE TINKEK. 117 

plaited rye straw, low in the crown and broad in 
the brim. The better-to-do class — those worth 
a cow and a calf or their equivalent of a hundred 
acres of land — indulged occasionally in the ex- 
travagance of a substitute of woolen fabric. 

The settlers were very strict in their religious 
observances. Services on Sunday were usually 
held, summer and winter, in the open air, and 
with no other shelter than that afforded by the 
trees. ^ Meeting-houses,' where there were any — 
because of the crevices left in the loose construc- 
tion of their walls, through which the winds had 
free passage, and the entire absence of fire, the 
desire for that element on the Lord's day and in 
the Lord's sanctuary being regarded as a carnal 
weakness which it was a prime duty of the faithful 
to crucify — afforded slight experience of better 
comfort. The attendants gathered in for preach- 
ing from distances of fifteen or twenty miles, 
riding on horseback, the women seated behind the 
men on pillions ; the men bearing with them 
* dumpling-bags' packed with provisions for con- 
sumption between sermons, and their rifles to 
guard against the always possible emergency of 
surprise from the Indians. An inspiring sight 
was it to witness these assemblies ; the men seem- 



118 ' TOM THE TINKER. 

ingly unconscious of heat or storm or cold, resting 
in various attitudes upon their loaded arms, and 
hearkening intently to such words of solid ex- 
hortation as the Old Testament texts in favor 
among their sect would suggest; and no less 
inspiring was it to hear such grand old hymns as 
' Mear/ ^ Old Hundred/ and ^ Dundee/ sung to 
the quaint rhymes of Rouse, and ringing- in 
majestic unison far along the tortuous aisles of 
the vast, open temple in which they worshiped. 

For the surer protection of the people and as 
places of refuge during any hostile incursion of 
the savages, block-houses were established at 
different points throughout the ^ Survey/ These 
were log structures about eighteen feet square, 
roofed Avith bark, carefully chunked to close the 
spaces between the logs, and perforated with 
funnel-shaped loopholes, through which to watch 
the movements of the Indians, and visit death, 
when opportunity offered, upon their barbarous 
assailants. In this service many of the women, 
whom long custom had qualified for the duty, 
acted, rifle in hand, with the men, while the less 
experienced — perhaps the less resolute — mean- 
while moulded the bullets. The upper story of 
the block-houses — for they were usually composed 



TOM THE TINKEE. 119 

of two, the better to command the ground beyond 
the pickets — extended on all sides about two feet 
beyond the lower. This was likewise provided 
with loopholes, not only in the sides, but in that 
portion of the floor which projected beyond the 
apartment underneath, so that in case a storming 
party reach the doors below, the besieged could 
fire down upon their heads. The block-houses 
were always planted close by springs of water, 
and included within the trenches and pickets sur- 
rounding, space enough to fold the common stock 
driven thither for protection. 

Commerce between the West and the East was 
carried on exclusively by pack-horses. The horses 
employed (mares were seldom, if ever, used) were 
of the Indian-pony breed, short and shaggy 
animals, but vigorous of muscle and full of en- 
durance. The ' make-up ' of a caravan for the 
grand tramp to Philadelphia consisted of from 
two hundred to three hundred horses, subdivided 
into companies of anywhere from ten to thirty, 
each of these companies being under the control 
of two managers — one, the supercargo, astride of 
the leading stallion, and the other, often a boy, 
on the animal at the rear, whose duty it was, 
armed with a whip consisting of a stout hickory 



120 TOM THE TINKEK. 

stock and a raw-hide lash of immense reach, in 
the use of which he became wonderfully expert, 
to keep the file in orderly motion. The driving 
of these caravans was an important and indepen- 
dent profession. The horses in charge of a 
supercargo were not his own, but furnished pro- 
miscuously upon each trip, animal by animal, by 
the farmers and traders as they had supplies to 
forward or receive. Each horse had a bell sus- 
pended from his neck, ordinarily, under march, 
stuffed with leaves tc> prevent its tinkling, but in 
camp at night, so that the whereabouts of an 
estray might be detected, or again to give pomp 
to an entree into towns on the way — Chambers- 
burg^ perhaps, or Carlisle — let free and made to 
ring lustily. If any of the animals were not 
trained to the march or disposed to be unruly, 
they were tied by ropes to the pack-saddle of the 
lead horse, and so forcibly inducted into orderly 
behavior. Each horse had his separate bridle — 
or halter with headstall, rather, because they used 
no bits — which was made of ropes plaited from 
the hair of their own tails and manes, not merely 
as an economical arrangement, but as a safe one, 
a horse being proof against capillary attraction, 
and never disposed to chaw a twist composed of 



TOM THE TINKER. 121 

fibres of his own growing. If a stallion was not 
well broken to the business, or if he was inclined 
to rove when turned loose, he was spanceled at 
night — secured, that is, by tying his fore-legs 
together below the knees, allowing length enough 
of rope between to move haltingly about for 
forage, but not to wander too far or make his re- 
taking difficult in the morning. The horses were 
never shod. The routes over which they traveled 
were merely paths winding along the valleys and 
through the mountain passes, as originally en- 
gineered and traced out by the cunning instincts 
of the wild deer. 

Pack-saddles were sometimes made of the forks 
of tree-branches cut in the shape of an inverted 
V, but more commonly of hewn-sticks fastened 
transversely together after the style of the letter 
X, having the arms of the upper angle (put there 
to prevent the load from slipping back or forward) 
considerably shorter than those of the lower. Two 
of these joined together by a strip of white-oak 
w^ood about six inches wide, extending at both 
ends — the ends being carefully rounded oif — about 
two inches beyond the crosses, underlaid with 
deer skin padded with moss to protect shoulders 
and back from abrasion, the deer skins secured to 



122 TOM THE TINKER. 

the frame with thongs of raw-hide, and the whole 
fastened in place by girths, cruppers and breast- 
straps, all of hair, constituted the saddle complete. 
Across these, bags were swung, in which kegs of 
whisky, bundles of medicinal roots, skins, &c., 
going east, were stowed, and, returning, salt 
and other packages of lading. When the re- 
turn load was of iron, the bars were bent horse- 
shoe shape, to ride the more securely on the 
saddle, and to allow of the unhindered passage of 
the animals along the narrow, thicket-bordered 
trails. The first wagon to cross the Allegheny 
mountains was hauled by a team of four horses, 
owned and driven, in private enterprise, by John 
Hayden, of Uniontown, in Fayette county. He 
followed the road cut out by Braddock, and took 
with him on his first trip six barrels of whisky, 
bringing back two thousand pounds of ^ store 
goods' for Jacob Bowman, of Brownsville, in the 
same county, receiving freight for the service at 
the rate of three dollars per hundred pounds. 
The harness of the horses, traces and all, was 
made of raw-hide ropes, and their collars of 
^corn-shucks,' twisted as in old-fashioned bee 
hives, and shaped to fit the neck. He camped 
out every night. The meat and drink for sus- 



TOM THE TINKER. 123 

tenance on the way he carried in a ^dumpling 
bag' — and in the barrels of his cargo. 

While the country bartered to a considerable 
extent in peltries, and also in petroleum, then 
recognized under the different designations of 
Seneca, Stone, Rock, Spike, British, American, 
and heaven knows what other sorts of oil — each 
and all esteemed as sovereign remedies for 
burns, bruises, spavins, sore heels, and what-not 
in the way of disease or infirmity in man 
and beast — whisky was the staple commodity. 
Every well-to-do farmer had his own simple 
apparatus and did his own distilling. Of coin 
the settlers knew little, and for currency cared 
less. Whisky was their circulating medium. 
They bought with whisky ; they sold for whisky. 
Whisky was the standard of value. The price 
of a pound of lead, or of powder, or of tobacco, 
was so many quarts of it ; of a rifle, so many 
gallons ; for an acre of ground within view of 
the metropolis, a ten gallon keg, and a barrel for 
a corner lot and the pasture privilege of the com- 
mon in the town — by survey — of Allegheny. 
Whisky was the favorite and universal beverage 
of the people, the substitute for coffee, tea and — • 
water. The farmer bore his flask of it with his 



124 TOM THE TINKEE. 

axe to the clearing, with his plough to the field, 
and with his rifle to the woods. He quaffed of 
it when he arose in the morning and when he 
retired at night ; he drank of it before meals to 
sharpen his appetite, after them to aid digestion, 
and between times — because he liked it. Store- 
keepers exposed it on their counters in vessels 
flanked by bowls of maple sugar and tufts of 
tansy and peppermint, and customers partook of 
it, plain, sweet or in decoction, at their pleasure, 
freely and without cost. The preacher, like 
Herman Husbands, made medicine of it in his 
pulpit to give tone to his voice and edge to his 
wits for the more penetrating exposition of the 
law and the prophets. Only next to a sprinkle 
of water was its presence essential at christenings, 
second to nothing at weddings, and first and alone 
at the wakes held over the dead of their people. 
At home and abroad, at coming and departing, on 
all chances of social gathering, whether for mourn- 
ing or rejoicing, at house-raisings, at log-rollings, 
at harvestings, at huskings, the generous liquor 
was ever to be seen — the inevitable, indispensable 
concomitant of the occasion. 

The political creed of the people was simple, 
but for them, practically as well as theoretically. 



TOM THE TINKER. 125 

sufficient. Their favorite maxim, like that adopted 
by sectionalists of a later date, was to let alone 
and be let alone. They had for years folio wino; 
upon the first settlement of the region been 
literally without law. Justices during that time, 
and constables, courts and prisons, were unknown, 
or vaguely remembered as the officers and institu- 
tions of an unrighteous and proscriptive civiliza- 
tion, from which, like Lot from Sodom, they had 
originally escaped as for their lives. As the 
population multiplied, and the country was at a 
later period districted off into counties, the forms 
of law were indeed observed,but its judgments were 
tenderly. decreed and not over rigidly executed. 
When a publican of Philadelphia was sent out to 
collect taxes under the revised law of 1777, the 
people amused themselves by singeing the wig 
and putting coals of fire into the boots of the 
detested official, offering a reward for his scalp, 
and finally shaving his head. The law afforded 
him neither redress nor protection. Out of 
seventy suits entered against delinquent distillers 
in 1790, all were set aside for irregularity. To be 
bound by enactments or made liable to penalties 
was distasteful to the settlers ; not that they were 
prone to do evil, nor that their practices were 
12 



126 TOM THE TINKER. 

impeachable beyond common, but because it had 
the look of usurpation, and was inconsistent with 
their views of perfect freedom. Accustomed to 
the license of border life, free to come and go as 
they listed, to till their lands, to sow, to reap and 
to gather into barns, and be subject to no tithe of 
mint or of cummin for the privilege, when the 
checks and tolls of an organized system of gov- 
ernment were fairly introduced, it is not to be 
w^ondered at if they chafed under the imposition, 
especially when made to bear against an unhindered 
traffic and indulgence in the prime element of 
their dependence. 

Such was the state of society on the frontier 
when the Excise Law of 1791 was enacted, im- 
posing a tax of from nine to twenty-five cents 
per gallon, according to strength, upon domestic 
spirits. If the tax had been levied on the air 
they breathed or the water they drank (from 
which, by the way, very little revenue would 
have been realized), it could not have excited the 
popular indignation more fiercely. This action 
of Congress had not been wholly unexpected. A 
scheme to the same effect had been proposed by 
Hamilton early in the session of the year 
previous. The people had caught at it then as a 



TOM THE TINKER. 127 

menace of what might possibly happen in the 
future. Its simple suggestion had excited their 
alarm, and aroused in them the purpose to protect 
the rights to which they were entitled. Why 
should they contribute of the sweat of their brows 
to sustain a system of laws they deprecated and a 
government they preferred to repudiate anyhow, 
as it was ? 

They were determined to be free. ^Liberty' 
became the chosen divinity of their worship. 
Poles were erected in her name, vivas shouted, 
and libations poured out — but not wasted — 
to her honor. Democratic societies were insti- 
tuted in close sympathy and in correspondence 
with similar associations of revolutionary France, 
and Robespierre and Collot d'Herbois were names 
familiar and approved among the ^citizens' of the 
frontier. Rather than suifer restriction of their 
rights, they would cut loose from Federal au- 
thority — ay, and from State rule, too — altogether, 
and establish a separate and independent com- 
munity of their own. Thus, through a twelve 
months' tide of preparatory fretfulness, when the 
decree came were they ripe for resistance. And 
so, out of the whirl and tumult of upstarted dis- 
turbance, to ride upon its rush and follow it in its 



128 TOM THE TINKER. 

course reckless as to whithersoever it might lead, 
arose Tom the Tinker. 

Who Tom the Tinker was, whence he came, 
and where exactly to place him since he had come, 
where questions all involved in mystery. Rumors 
prevailed that there were certain men who some- 
where had encountered him, and who described 
him as an hard, revengeful fellow, ill-bred and 
of coarse manners, low instincts and lawless habits ; 
but upon closer inquiry the person so described 
was found to be only a certain obscure neighbor- 
hood busybody of the name of John Holcroft. 
Others thought that he had been identified in the 
person of an individual of less ruffianly presence, 
but a man of violence withal, and a dangerous 
disturber of the peace ; but he proved to be the 
prosecuting officer of Washington county, known 
as David Bradford. Some supposed him to be a 
French gentleman in disguise, fresh from the 
atmosphere of the secret club-rooms of Paris, 
come to propagate the new gospel of reform 
current in that capital; but Citizen Genet 
had not yet crossed the seas. No one could pro- 
nounce positively upon him, however ; and among 
the less sensational and imaginative he was finally 
put down as a personage rather of myth, perhaps, 



TOM THE TINKER. 129 

than of fact. Nevertheless, fact or figment, he 
exercised a sway over the populace that for the 
time was absolute. 

From the year 1777 — the date when officers 
were first commissioned to collect revenues west 
of the mountains — down to 1791, the people were 
satisfied to simply treat the law and its executors, 
sent over always from the East, with contempt, or, 
at worst, with such practical exhibitions of dis- 
approval as have been alluded to in the case of 
Graham, the Philadelphia publican; but when, 
under the more stringent statute of '91, General 
Neville — one of their own most eminent and in- 
fluential citizens, and who had been presumed, 
reasonably or not, to sympathize with them 
hitherto in their prejudices against the obnoxious 
enactment — consented to serve as inspector, the 
matter assumed a grave importance in their eyes. 
Singeing wigs and stuffing boots with live coals 
might do for the foreign hireling, but hardly for 
the popular neighbor, to whose generosities they 
were accustomed, and with whom in friendly in- 
tercourse they were daily wont to meet. Yet none 
the less, though in a more decided way, were they 
determined to face the exigency. Public meet- 
ings were called. The first was held on the 27th 



130 TOM THE TINKER. 

of July, '91, at Redstone Old Fort, near Browns- 
ville, on the Monongahela River, at which 
Findley, of Westmoreland, and Smiley, of Fayette 
county, members of Congress, together with Al- 
bert Gallatin, were present. Other assemblages, 
by resolution of this, were ordered in the four 
western counties — Allegheny and Washington, to- 
gether with the two just mentioned — for the elec- 
tion of delegates to a general convention to be held 
at Pittsburg on the 7th of September following. 
The result of these meetings was a series of re- 
solutions protesting against the Excise Act as 
deservedly obnoxious, attended with infringements 
on liberty, insulting in the inquisitorial proceed- 
ings necessary to its execution, and as a precedent 
tending to introduce the pernicious laws of foreign 
countries, where liberty, property, and even the 
morals of the people, were sported with, and 
made to be subordinate to the ends of selfish am- 
bition. 

The people of the region may be said at this 
juncture to have been divided into three classes: 
First, the Submissionists, or those who were 
willing to comply with the terms of the law — a 
small party mainly limited to Pittsburg and 
headed by Neville ; second^ the Conservatives (to 



TOM THE TINKER. 131 

use the favorite term), who disapproved of the 
act, and would have it either corrected or rendered 
inoperative by making it odious, and represented 
by such men as Findley and Bradford and Gal- 
latin ; and third, the Revolutionists, or those who 
repudiated the law outright, and would resist its 
execution vi et armis — a faction if not decidedly 
the strongest, certainly the most demonstrative, 
and led by Tom the Tinker. Now, in a division 
of this sort, as the middle party leans, one ex- 
treme or the other is pretty sure to claim to be 
entitled to, and, in point of fact, quite as sure to 
command, its sympathy. Would Findley declare 
that ' the said law discouraged agriculture and a 
manufacture highly beneficial to them, and that 
it would fall most heavily on the new settlements 
of the West, where the aggregate of the citizens 
is of the laborious and poorer class, who have not 
the means of procuring the wines, spirituous 
liquors, etc., imported from foreign countries?' 
Tom the Tinker, through the hundred throats of the 
^aggregates/ could and would, with three times 
three, vociferate concurrence in the sentiment, and 
himself read a hint, besides which, at to-morrow's 
harvesting or next day's log-rolling, he would 
not be slow to put to account. W^ould Bradford 



132 TOM THE TINKEK. 

counsel that ^ they should consider any man who 
was so far lost to every sense of virtue and feeling 
for the distresses of his country as to accept the 
office of collector, as unworthy of their friendship 
— that they would have no intercourse or dealing 
with him — that they would withdraw from him 
every assistance, upon all occasions treat him with 
that contempt he deserved, and earnestly recom- 
mend the people at large to follow the same line 
of conduct ? ' It was orthodox text, which the 
Revolutionist could accept, every word of it, and 
plead afterward, as was done, in justification of 
his own violence. Speculatively, there seemed to 
be entire harmony between the two parties : the 
diflPerence — a material one, certainly, even though 
the Third Estate might not see it — turning upon 
the method practically of best choice for its cor- 
rection. 

Under Tom the Tinker's rendering of these 
public utterances, whispered cunningly, at fitting 
times, into the ears of such facile material as 
John Robertson, John Hamilton and Thomas 
McComb, what was the consequence? On the 
6th of September, Robert Johnston, a collector, 
was waylaid on Pigeon creek, in Washington 
county, seized, tarred and feathered, relieved of 



TOM THE TINKER. 133 

his horse, and in that plight sent adrift to seek 
shelter where he best might find it. Mr. Wells, 
collector of the district of Westmoreland and 
Fayette, was subjected to similar experience at 
the hands of the committees of the enrages, both 
in Greensburg and Union town. A man of the 
name of Wilson, a stranger of disordered intellect, 
made his appearance some time during the month 
of October, and wandered over the region, pro- 
claiming himself fantastically as a grand com- 
missioner appointed by President Washington to 
ihquire generally into, and to regulate all matters 
pertaining to distilleries, assessments and collec- 
tions, and to report the result to Congress. The 
distemper of his mind was clearly apparent. A 
party in disguise started in pursuit of him. 
Overtaking him in the night, they dragged him 
from his bed, carried him several miles away to a 
blacksmith shop, stripped him, burnt his clothing, 
branded him w^th hot irons, tarred and feathered 
him, and so, as daylight dawned, sore, scarred and 
naked, let him loose. He bore the treatment 
with the h(!roism of a martyr. The cases of 
some of the parties engaged in these proceedings 
were brought before the district court, out of 
which processes were issued for their arrest. The 



134 TOM THE TINKER. 

deputy serving these processes was seized, whipped, 
tarred and feathered, robbed of his money and 
horse, blindfolded and tied to a tree in the woods. 
The marshal reported the failure of the attempt 
to the district attorney, and the result was ^ a 
forbearance to urge coercive measures any further 
for the present/ 

By act of Congress of May 8th, 1792, the law 
was materially and favorably modified. Generally, 
elsewhere, the modifications were accepted in 
satisfactory settlement of disagreements. But 
the case was different in the West. Opposition 
thus far had prospered so successfully, and with 
impunity so complete, that Tom the Tinker felt 
himself master of the situation, and would allow 
of no concession. The tax, he continued to re- 
iterate through his conservative friend Bradford, 
was unjust, oppressive and enslaving, and must 
be ^obstructed in its operation,^ That was the 
platform. 

Under the law, as revised, officers of inspection 
for the accommodation of distillers were appointed, 
one for each county. Corrective treatment under 
Tom the Tinker had thus far been limited to the 
appointees under government. Now it was 
threatened against any who would let places of 



TOM THE TINKER. 135 

accommodation for these officers, as well as 
against the few among the distillers who evinced 
a disposition to comply with the act. Captain 
William Faulkner allowed the use of a house to 
the inspector of Washington. He was met by a 
party lying in wait, who drew knives on him, 
threatened to scalp him and burn his house down 
if he did not solemnly pledge himself to dis- 
possess his objectionable tenant. He did so, 
giving public notice of the fact through a card in 
the Pittsburg Gazette. William Richards, an 
informer against the rioters, had his barn burnt. 
Kiddoo and Cochran, complying distillers, had 
their stills and mills broken into and generally 
wrecked. Revolutionism was triumphantly in the 
ascendant. 

Until midsummer of 1794 opposition was car- 
ried on by small gangs of not over, and often of 
less than, half a dozen malcontents, banded 
together for the emergency, and directed exclu- 
sively against the subordinate agents of the law. 
When the government at length began to exhibit 
determination, and the Marshal started out to 
serve his processes in person, counteraction on a 
corresponding scale was pronounced to be indis- 
pensable. Tom the Tinker let it be known that 



136 TOM THE TINKER,. 

^ he was about with his bear skin budget/ and 
published the boast abroad that ' his iron was hot, 
his hammer was up, and he would not travel the 
country for nothing.' He posted his placards on 
the trees in the woods, on the fences along the 
highways, against the doors of shops and houses, 
and compelled, by intimidation, their reproduction 
in the columns of the Gazette, Citizens were 
warned that their liberties were in peril. If they 
would not be slaves, they must arm and to the 
rescue. If they would be successful, they must 
orofanize and meet force with force. If there 
were traitors among them, high or low, rich or 
poor, they must be treated all alike, according to 
their deserts. They must not content themselves 
with dealing out justice to the low subordinates of 
officials, but must strike at the heads. His in- 
flammatory appeals were not wasted. Organiza- 
tions were formed; The men were divided off 
into companies, with captains placed over them, 
and a strict military discipline enforced. John 
Brackenridge, of Bushy Kun, sat up two succes- 
sive nights with an axe in his hand, to defend 
himself against an expected visit from his 
commander — one Sharp — who had threatened his 
life for not attending a house-burning according 
to summons. 



TOM THE TINKEE. 137 

On the 15th of July, while the Marshal, ac- 
companied by Inspector Neville, was traveling 
in the discharge of his duty, he was beset, and a 
gun fired on him in the assault, by a party of 
thirty or forty men. Next morning, at early 
dawn, a company, estimated variously and wildly 
at from thirty-six to ^ about ^ a hundred persons, 
armed and led by the redoubtable John Holcroft, 
made an attack on Neville's house at Bower Hill, 
on the road to Washington, some eight miles from 
Pittsburg. John kept up a system of manoeuvres 
until sunset, but was eifectually held at bay by 
the inmates of the house. On the day following, 
large reinforcements having arrived meanwhile, 
the assault, under the leadership now of James 
McFarland, a militia Major, was renewed. The 
party besieged had likewise been strengthened 
by the arrival, during the night, of Major Kirk- 
patrick with a detachment of eleven men from 
the garrison of Fort Fayette. The unpromising 
prospect of a successful defense against the great 
odds with which he had to contend induced 
Kirkpatrick to invite a truce. A parley was had 
under cover of a flag, but the demands of the 
insurgents were more than Kirkpatrick was 
willing to concede, and the interview terminated 
13 



138 TOM THE TINKER. 

fruitlessly. The besiegers resumed their attack. 
The barn and adjoining out-houses were set on 
fire, the flames speedily communicating with the 
mansion, when the Major and his little guard 
came out and surrendered, but not until sev- 
eral of the assailants were wounded, and their 
leader, McFarland, a prominent and favorite 
citizen, killed. The cellar of the Collector con- 
tained a full supply of choice liquors, which also 
were entirely consumed — but not by the flames. 

A meeting was held at Mingo meeting-house 
six days after the assault at Bower Hill, composed 
principally of the participants in that affair. The 
officers and orators were of the Conservative 
party and men of position in society. The last 
week's excitement had subsided. With the calm 
had come a feeling of ^gloom and distrust.' The 
addresses delivered, far different from the fiery 
harangues indulged in at former gatherings, were 
of a comparatively moderate and conciliatory 
character. Tom the Tinker, still defiant as ever, 
was more than disgusted at the turn affairs were 
taking. 

" You/' said he, taking the floor, and aiming his 
speech pointedly at Bradford, " You encouraged 
us in this matter by your words; you counseled 



TOM THE TINKER. 139 

with us when we took counsel ; you know what 
has been done ; we wish to know whether what 
has been done is right or wrong, and whether we 
are to be supported or left to ourselves." 

" I encourage ?" exclaimed Bradford. " Good 
God ! I never thought of such a thing !" 

*' You did/' Tom the Tinker rejoined ; " and if 
you don't support us now, you shall be treated as 
an excise officer yourself." 

Bradford yielded, and from that time became a 
chief leader of the movement. Others attempted 
to stave off a committal in the matter — some from 
fear, some because they could not pledge approval 
of violence, and yet did not deem it expedient, on 
the other hand, to risk a forfeiture of a wholesome 
influence over the multitude by arraying them- 
selves declaredly in opposition. Conspicuous 
among these latter were Brackenridge and Gal- 
latin. While the course of these gentlemen— 
particularly the one first mentioned, then a 
candidate for Congress^was at the time, and has 
been since, severely commented upon, there can 
be little doubt but that they were eminently 
instrumental in the prevention of very seriously 
threatened disaster, and in the final happy settle- 
ment of the whole trouble. On the present occa- 



140 TOM THE TINKEE. 

sion Mr. Brackenridge spoke, and with such ad- 
dress that the meeting dissolved without definite 
action of any sort, except to invite a general 
congress of delegates to a future convention, to be 
held at Parkinson's Ferry. 

Tom the Tinker, to forestall any undesirable 
action that might be taken at the proposed conven- 
tion, determined to commit the insurgents before- 
hand, to some such flagrant deed of lawlessness, 
as would hold them, out of the reach of after - 
relief, to his following. A first act decided upon 
was to rob the mail. Two agents were appointed, 
who intercepted the post-boy a short distance out 
from Greensburg, and relieved him of his bag. 
An examination of the contents of the abstracted 
letters, discovered to Tom that he was made the 
subject of comments, by those high in authority, 
which foreboded a dealing with him presently, 
not at all pleasant to anticipate. This spurred 
him on promptly to his second act. A secret 
conclave was called of half a dozen of his proved 
agents at a country tavern near Canonsburg. A 
circular letter was drawn up by this cabal, and 
dispatched by messengers in every direction. 
This missive embodied the declaration that, 
^from letters by the post in our possession, cer- 



TOM THE TINKER. 141 

tain secrets are discovered hostile to our interests ; 
therefore it has come to that crisis that every 
citizen must express his sentiments, not by words, 
but by actions ;' and ended by calling upon each 
one 'to appear armed and supplied with four 
days' provisions at Braddock's Field (the usual 
place for holding the annual brigade muster) on 
the first day of August, at two o'clock in the after- 
noon/ The expressed object of this gathering 
was to march upon Pittsburg, to seize the maga- 
zines of the garrison, and to arrest the writers of 
the offensive letters. The publication of the 
circular provoked strong remonstrances from the 
Middle party; and the personal risk to which he 
would expose himself by the movement so oper- 
ated upon Bradford, its author, that he undertook 
to countermand the order. The populace were 
furiously enraged in consequence. A meeting was 
called at the Washington courthouse, where the 
excitement ran so high that Bradford felt himself 
constrained to deny the authorship of the counter- 
mand, and to insist, in vehement terms, that the 
appointment should be observed. A resolution to 
this effect was offered and carried triumphantly. 
The day was at hand which was to be decisive 
of the fortunes of Tom the Tinker. The zeal 



142 TOM THE TINKEK. 

worthy of a nobler cause, which, through the 
feeble results that crowned its first efforts, had 
struggled persistently on, was now, if ever, . to 
realize the reward of that perseverance. No 
longer the covert instigator merely to a midnight 
assault upon a miserable, helpless deputy collector, 
with a brace of knaves under disguise for his tools, 
he was to appear the captain of an army reck- 
oned by battalions and prepared to march with 
banners unfurled in the light of day, boldly, and 
in the face of whatever might oppose. But the 
emergency was a critical one. The Conservative 
element, though silenced, was not subdued. The 
mutterings of a power that could wield a scourge 
began to be heard from beyond the mountains. 
Of the Golden Circle of his own confederates, 
moreover, were the initiated all, beyond a perad- 
venture, good men and true? Complicated and 
questionable as the case was, however, Tom the 
Tinker had committed himself to the task of its 
execution, and was determined to see it through. 
Setting himself promptly to work, he traversed 
the length and breadth of the settlements, com- 
forting the faithful, emboldening the timid, bully- 
ing the doubtful and threatening dire mischief to 
the suspected — all who, upon whatever pretense. 



TOM THE TINKER. 143 

should fail to come up to the work in response to 
the summons. His mission was apparently suc- 
cessful. At once began the hum and hurry of 
preparation all through the Survey. Neighbors 
hastened hither and thither, busy to aid and to 
watch each other. Bullets were molded, flints 
picked, deer skins stitched into pouches, cows' 
horns carved into powder flasks, tomahawks 
sharpened, knives ground ; while the blacksmith 
shops, far and near, became resonant with the 
toils spent upon repairs to old muskets, rifles and 
shot-guns. 

The three days allotted for preparation passed 
by, and the morning of August 1st found a force 
of seven thousand men, about one-third mounted, 
the rest on foot, assembled at the appointed place 
of rendezvous. It was a motley assemblage. The 
men were dressed in hunting shirts, with caps, 
some, some with hats, others lacking both, with 
handkerchiefs wrapped about their heads, — their 
faces disguised under daubs of copper-colored 
paint or smeared with black, in imitation of the 
savage when on the war-path. They roamed 
about camp at pleasure, amusing themselves by 
shooting at marks or firing blank cartridges in 
the air over each other's heads. Bradford as- 



144 TOM THE TINKER. 

Slimed the position of Major-General. Mounted 
on a magnificent charger decorated with gorgeous 
trappings, himself habited in complete military 
uniform, he galloped hither and thither about the 
field, his drawn sword flashing in the sun and his 
rich plumes streaming in the air. A proud man 
was Bradford on that day ! The soldiers were 
devoted to him. When he thirsted, it was a glad 
service for a follower to wade into the river and 
with his hat (when he had one) dip a supply of 
water from the cool depths of the channel, and 
bear it, dripping, to him that he might drink. 
The plan of the campaign in hand was well un- 
derstood by the rank and file. They were to 
march into Pittsburg — held in peculiar disrelish 
because of its presumed disloyalty to Tom the 
Tinker — dispatch in some short, sharp and de- 
cisive way the Submissionists, conquer possession 
of Fort Pitt, ' burn down with fire from earth 
this second Sodom (the town), as the old Sodom 
had been burned by fire from heaven,' secede from 
the Federal rule and establish an independent 
commonwealth of their own. The people of Pitts- 
burg, aware of their plans, became alarmed, 
called a meeting, passed a series of resolutions 
in which they ??i/srepresented themselves — on the 



TOM THE TINKER. 145 

plea that it was the only expedient left to insure 
their safety — as in sympathy with the insurgents, 
and declared that they would not only ^compel 
such as were unfriendly to the cause to instantly 
depart the town/ but would themselves ^ march 
out and join the people at Braddock^s Field as 
brethren, to aid them in carrying into effect any 
measure deemed advisable for the common cause.' 
A committee of twenty-one, accompanied by a 
militia force of tw^o hundred and fifty men under 
command of General Wilkins, started oif to re- 
port their proceedings at camp and negotiate, 
if possible, some peaceable settlement with the 
rebels. 

Conferences were held. Earnest attempts were 
made to dissuade the Eevolutionists from the 
destructive movement threatened. There was no 
necessity for it, and it could terminate in no ad- 
vantage. The authors of the offensive letters, it 
was urged, had already gone into voluntary ban- 
ishment. The few of their sympathizing friends 
left behind were incapable of doing harm. The 
fort might be captured, at the expense of, say, 
a thousand lives, but would it pay at the sacrifice? 
And in such an event was there not room to ap- 
prehend that the Federal chief at Philadelphia 



146 TOM THE TINKER. 

might undertake to venture out and vindicate his 
supremacy at the head of a host sufficient for the 
enterprise? 

" That would be coercion ! '' exclaimed the 
democratic general. 

" Undoubtedly/^ said Brackenridge, on behalf 
of the committee. 

'^ It would be unconstitutional." 

" Unquestionably." 

" It would involve an invasion of our territory, 
and a gross defiance of the sovereign rights of the 
intermediate counties.' ' 

" Precisely ; the courts might so decide in the 
end, but men could be made to swing in the mean 
time. Military judgments are proverbially sud- 
den of execution." 

Now, Bradford, in his blue uniform, with the 
plume in his hat, the sword on his thigh, the 
spurs on his heels, and a steed at command worthy 
the princely proprietor of the only shingled house 
in Washington county, felt himself to be every 
inch a soldier; and so perhaps he was, but the 
valor becoming the officer was tempered with the 
discretion befitting the citizen. 

Revolving in his mind the hints suggested, 
symptoms of irresolution began to betray them- 
selves. 



TOM THE TINKER. 147 

"What am I to do V^ said he, hesitatingly, at 
length. "The people are here for an avowed 
purpose, and they are not to be thwarted." 

"Oh," said Brackenridge, "a simple demon- 
stration will satisfy them. The plan of move- 
ment need not be changed. We will march into 
town, intimidate the citizens with a show of what 
we could do if we had a mind to, plead magna- 
nimity, take a drink, and then — march out 
again." 

Upon this compromise the conference ended. 
When the result was made known, murmurs of 
dissatisfaction were heard here and there. Tom 
the Tinker cursed his lieutenant in trenchant 
style, but the rank and file generally accepted the 
decision with entire content. Next day, what was 
left of the army — about one-fourth having 
quietly dispersed in the meantime — piloted by 
Brackenridge, took up the route, entered Pitts- 
burg at four o'clock in the afternoon, paraded 
its streets, and halted finally on the vacant plain 
between Market street and Grant's Hill. Here, 
according to the terms of the arrangement, whole 
barrels of whisky were broached and dealt out 
to the men. Taking advantage of the opportune 
moment, when the temper of their guests was 



148 TOM THE TINKER. 

stimulated to its most tractable pitch, the cavalry 
were mounted and led by the ford, the low water 
luckily allowing of the passage, while the infantry, 
put afloat in skiifs, flat boats and on rafts, were 
ferried across the river and tramped to the top of 
Coal Hill, where they bivouacked for the night, 
and whence they dispersed to their homes in the 
morning. 

The campaign was ended. Standing on the 
brow of the eminence overlooking it, Tom the 
Tinker cast his eye down upon the town. There 
it lay within the embrace of its waters, as whole 
and harmless as though its streets had never felt 
the tread of hostile feet. After the sworn resolve 
of devastation and ruin, after the responsive 
uprising of eager legions to see it executed, the 
arming, the gathering, the organizing, seven 
thousand strong, and the moving by column — 
banners flying, plumes waving and shouts ring- 
ing — down against devoted Sodom, this was the 
achievement and this the end — drinks all around 
and a free transportation, for happy riddance, 
across the river ! Nevertheless, abortive — 
weakly, ridiculously abortive — as had proved 
the enterprise, and disastrously as must work the 
failure upon its future prospects, Tom the Tinker 



TOM THE TINKER. 149 

could Dot, would not, abandon all hope for the 
revolution. The movement might have been 
premature. He must recede a pace in its pro- 
gress, trace out fresh schemes of policy, temper 
his measures to accommodate the scruples of the 
Middle party, and on the basis thus contrived 
establish his lines, trusting to the divinity that 
shaped his ends for the better issue of the new 
adventure. 

According to appointment of the meeting at 
Mingo, the convention of delegates, numbering 
two hundred and twenty-six, assembled on the 
fourteenth of August at Parkinson's Ferry, now 
Monongahela City, on the river of that name, 
Edward Cook, a venerable pioneer, in the chair, 
and Albert Gallatin, secretary. Tom the Tinker, 
promptly on the ground, proposed toward the fur- 
therance of his plans, an endorsement of certain 
declarations, which were presented by proxy of one 
of his special favorites in a series of resolutions. 
The first was to the effect that the taking of 
citizens from their respective neighborhoods to be 
tried for real or supposed offenses was a violation 
of their rights, a forced construction of the 
Constitution, and ought not to be exercised by the 
judicial authority; the second, that a Committee 
U 



150 TOM THE TINKER. 

of Public Safety should be appointed, with 
instructions Ho call forth the resources of the 
Western country to repel any invasion that might 
be made against their rights;' the third, Hhat a 
remonstrance to Congress should be prepared, 
praying a repeal of the Excise Law;' the fourth, 
that a manifesto should be issued, for the 
President, the Governors of Pennsylvania and 
Virginia, and for ^ the world,' declarative of the 
motives, liable to be misconstrued, leading to the 
disturbance at Neville's house and 'the great and 
general rendezvous of the people at Braddock's 
Field.' The fifth was an expression of willingness 
to abide by law and government, Hhe Excise 
Laws and taking away citizens for trial only 
excepted.' The first resolution was adopted 
without dispute. The others elicited controversy. 
The Conservatives could not approve of an in- 
vestment of the power ' to call forth resources to 
repel invasion' in the hands of a committee. 
Neither, indeed, could the lukewarm among the 
Extremists, who had faltered in the memorable 
march on Pittsburg, and whose demoralized faith 
had prompted the apologetic introduction of ' the 
motives liable to be misconstrued^ in the fourth 
resolution. 



TOM THE TINKEE. 151 

Tom the Tinker struggled zealously on behalf 
of his text, but the tide was against him. Nor 
was his case strengthened when, in the midst of 
discussion, it was learned that a commission had 
arrived from Philadelphia to represent the Gov- 
ernment in a final attempt at pacification. The 
resolutions were at once erased of their revolution- 
ary features, the valorous tone of the second 
especially being tamed down so as only to author- 
ize the committee on public safety, ^in case of any 
sudden emergency, to take such temporary meas- 
ures as they may think necessary.^ Thus amended, 
under the prudent and persistent management, 
and in accordance with the conservative policy of 
Brackenridge and Gallatin, the resolutions were 
adopted. 

The standing committee met, chose a delegation 
of twelve to confer with the Federal commission- 
ers (Judge Yates, Senator Ross and William 
Bradford, Attorney General) at Pittsburg, on the 
20th of August, and appointed September 2d and 
Brownsville as the time and place when and 
where to take action on their report. Upon 
assembly of the conferees at Pittsburg, excitement 
ran high with Tom the Tinker and his men. 
Before the house in which they were gathered a 



152 TOM THE TINKER. 

liberty pole was erected, and a flag with seven 
stars, one for each of the confederate counties — 
the four western and Bedford in Pennsylvania, 
with two in Virginia— unfurled amid the roistering 
cheers and malevolent menaces of the mob. The 
consultation between the commissioners was long 
and earnest, but resulted, at length, in a mutual 
agreement upon terms of adjustment — an assent, 
in fact, to the terms demanded by the Govern- 
ment — and the drawing up of a report accord- 
ingly. 

The last eventful day in the history of the 
insurrection arrived when the assembly of the 
standing committee, or ^ Scrub Congress,' as it 
was contemptuously styled, took place at Browns- 
ville. Tom the Tinker, alive to the vital neces- 
sity of a display of force sufficient to overawe the 
delegates, had gathered in his followers from far 
and near. Among the rest appeared a body of sev- 
enty stalwart fellows — Mingo men, all — armed 
with rifle, tomahawk and knife, as at the rendezvous 
at Braddock's Field. The report of the conferees 
was read, and in gallant style, despite of dissatis- 
fied murmurs and derisive ejaculations of ^Good 
Lord, deliver us!' defended in speeches of 
eloquent force by Gallatin and Brack enridge. It 



TOM THE TINKER 153 

was then decided to take a vote upon the report, 
when, in order to secure an unintimidated and 
unbiased expression of sentiment, a novel method 
was adopted at the suggestion of a delegate. 
Sixty scraps of paper, one for each member of the 
committee, were provided by the secretary, upon 
which, in different places and by his hand, yea 
and nay were written. These were distributed 
among the members, by them torn into two 
pieces, and one of them, containing its affirmative 
or negative, was secretly folded and deposited in 
the secretary's hat, while the other was made way 
with by chewing to a pulp in the mouth or in 
some other equally effective manner. Quite to 
their own surprise, and inexpressibly to the 
astonishment of Tom the Tinker's men, the count 
of the ballots disclosed a vote of thirty-four 
against twenty-three, the proposition of the 
commissioners prevailing by a majority of eleven. 
This revelation of the true state of affairs be- 
tween the parties produced a wonderful effect. 
The Conservatives, kept timidly in check hither- 
to by a feeling of inferiority, grew courageous at 
the discovery of their strength, while the Revo- 
lutionists, on the other hand, shrank back 
bewildered at the betrayal of their weakness. 



154 TOM THE TINKEE. 

Insolence of speech abated, effrontery of action 
sabsidecl. One by one, stealthily and quietly, 
with their rifles under their arms, began to creep 
out the seventy — one by one the Mingo men, 
down along the valley paths, up the slopes to the 
highlands, and so along the devious trails, off to 
their scattered lodges in the wilderness. 

The insurrection was virtually ended. A 
spasmodic attempt or two was made for its 
resuscitation, but without noticeable results. All 
concerned, to screen themselves from consequen- 
ces — for the Federal army was on its march — 
were hurrying in to subscribe to the test oath 
ordered, and thus secure advantage of the proffer- 
ed amnesty. Bradford was among the most 
humble of the suitors for pardon, but his treason 
did not admit of expiation, and he was forced to 
abscond. Mounted on his famous steed, he made 
for the Ohio river. There he abandoned the good 
horse, lay all night, cold and hungry, in a canoe, 
crawled next morning into a contractor's coal 
boat, was overtaken and seized by a party sent in 
pursuit, and would have been dragged unresist- 
ingly and ignominiously away, but for the 
interference of a Washington county lad, himself 
a fugitive, who, rifle in hand, rushed to his aid 



TOM THE TINKEE. 155 

and brought him rescue. He then steered for the 
Spanish dominions, ending his career in the quiet 
pursuit of sugar-cane culture on a Louisiana 
plantation. 

Deserted by his Lieutenant-General, Tom the 
Tinker felt himself abandoned by his last hope, 
and resigned himself to despair over the Lost 
Cause. His presence was recognized no longer in 
the Survey. Many supposed that to flee well- 
merited retribution he had taken to horse, like 
his chief officer, and, following hard upon his 
heels, had flitted to foreign parts. Others 
suspected that he still tarried, but under safe 
concealment, within limit of the old familiar 
sphere, and that he might be expected to reap- 
pear, ripe for riot as of yore, at any day, when 
time and circumstances invited. 



Stephen C, Foster. 

AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 



STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

And Negro Minstrelsy. 



n^HIRTY-SIX years ago a young man, about 
twenty-five years of age, of a commanding 
height, — six feet full, the heels of his boots not in- 
cluded in the reckoning, — and dressed in scrupu- 
lous keeping with the fashion of the time, might 
have been seen sauntering idly along one of the 
principal streets of Cincinnati. To the few who 
could claim acquaintance with him he was known 
as an actor, playing at the time referred to a short 
engagement as light comedian in a theater of that 
city. He does not seem to have attained to any 
noticeable degree of eminence in his profession, 
but he had established for himself a reputation 
among jolly fellows in a social way. He could 
tell a story, sing a song, and dance a hornpipe, 
after a style which, however unequal to complete 



160 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

success on the stage, proved, in private perform- 
ance to select circles rendered appreciative by 
accessory refreshments, famously triumphant al- 
ways. If it must be confessed that he was defi- 
cient in the more profound qualities, it is not to 
be inferred that he was destitute of all the distin- 
guishing, though shallower, virtues of character. " 
He had the merit, too, of a proper appreciation of 
his own capacity ; and his aims never rose above 
that capacity. As a superficial man he dealt with 
superficial things, and his dealings were marked 
by tact and shrewdness. In his sphere he was 
proficient, and he kept his wits upon the alert for 
everything that might be turned to professional and 
profitable use. Thus it was that, as he sauntered 
along one of the main thoroughfares of Cincin- 
nati, as has been written, his attention was sud- 
denly arrested by a voice ringing clear and full 
above the noises of the street, and giving utter- 
ance, in an unmistakable dialect, to the refrain of 
a song to this effect : — 

" Turn about an' wheel about an' do jis so, 
An' ebeiy time I turn about I jump Jim Crow." 

Struck by the peculiarities of the performance, 
so unique in style, matter and "character" of de- 



AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 161 

livery, the player listened on. Were not these 
elements — was the suggestion of the instant — 
which might admit of higher than mere street or 
stable-yard development? As a national or 
"race'' illustration behind the footlights, might 
not "Jim Crow" and a black face tickle the fancy 
of pit and circle, as well as the " Sprig of 
Shillalah" and a red nose ? Out of the suggestion 
leaped the determination ; and so it chanced that 
the casual hearing of a song trolled by a negro 
stage-driver, lolling lazily on the box of his ve- 
hicle, gave origin to a school of music destined 
to excel in popularity all others, and to make the 
name of the obscure actor, T. D. Rice, famous. 

As his engagement at Cincinnati had nearly 
expired. Rice deemed it expedient to postpone 
a public venture in the newly projected line until 
the opening of a fresh engagement should assure 
him opportunity to share fairly the benefit 
expected to grow out of the experiment. This 
engagement had already been entered into ; and 
accordingly, shortly after, in the autumn of 1830, 
he left Cincinnati for Pittsburg. 

The old theater of Pittsburg occupied the site 
of the present one, on Fifth Street. It was an 
unpretending structure, rudely built of boards, 
15 



162 STEPHEN 0. FOSTEE, 

and of moderate proportions, but sufficient, 
nevertheless, to satisfy the taste and secure 
the comfort of the few who dared to face conse- 
quences and lend patronage to an establishment 
under the ban of the Scotch-Irish Calvinists. 
Entering upon duty at the "Old Drury^^ of the 
"Birmingham of America," Rice prepared to 
take advantage of his opportunity. There was 
a negro in attendance at Griffith's Hotel, on Wood 
Street, named Cuff, — an exquisite specimen of 
his sort, — who won a precarious subsistence by 
letting his open mouth as a mark for boys to 
pitch pennies mto, at three paces, and by carry- 
ing the trunks of passengers from the steamboats 
to the hotels. Cuff was precisely the subject for 
Eice's purpose. Slight persuasion induced him 
to accompany the actor to the theater, where 
he was led through the private entrance, and 
quietly ensconced behind the scenes. After the 
play, Rice, having shaded his own countenance 
to the "contraband'^ hue, ordered Cuff to disrobe, 
and proceeded to invest himself in the cast-off 
apparel. When the arrangements were complete, 
the bell rang, and Rice, habited in an old coat 
forlornly dilapidated, with a pair of shoes com- 
posed equally of patches and places for patches 



AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 163 

on his feet, and wearing a coarse straw hat in a 
melancholy condition of rent and collapse over 
a dense black wig of matted moss, waddled into 
view. The extraordinary apparition produced an 
instant effect. The crash of peanuts ceased in the 
pit, and through the circles passed a murmur and 
a bustle of liveliest expectation. The orchestra 
opened with a short prelude, and to its accom- 
paniment Rice began to sing, delivering the first 
line by way of introductory recitative : — 

" O, Jim Crow's come to town, as you all must know, 
An' he wheel about, he turn about, he do jis so, 
An' ebery time he wheel about he jump Jim Crow." 

The effect was electric. Such a thunder of ap- 
plause as followed was never heard before within 
the shell of that old theater. With each suc- 
ceeding couplet and refrain the uproar was re- 
newed, until presently, when the performer, 
gathering courage from the favorable temper of 
his audience, ventured to improvise matter for 
his distiches from familiarly known local inci- 
dents, the demonstrations were deafening. 

Now it happened that Cuff, who meanwhile 
was crouching in dishabille under concealment of 
a projecting flat behind the performer, by some 



164 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

means received intelligence, at this point, of the 
near approach of a steamer to the Monongahela 
wharf. Between himself and others of his color 
in the same line of business, and especially as 
regarded a certain formidable competitor called 
Ginger, there existed an active rivalry in the 
baggage-carrying business. For Cuff to allow 
Ginger the advantage of an undisputed descent 
upon the luggage of the approaching vessel would 
be not only to forfeit all ^^ considerations^^ from 
the passengers, but, by proving him a laggard in 
his calling, to cast a damaging blemish upon his 
reputation. Liberally as he might lend himself 
to a friend, it could not be done at that sacrifice. 
After a minute or two of fidgety waiting for the 
song to end, Cuff's patience could endure no 
longer, and, cautiously hazarding a glimpse of 
his profile beyond the edge of the flat, he called 
in a hurried whisper : ^"^Massa Rice, Massa R-ice, 
must have my clo'se ! Massa Griffif wants me, 
— steamboat ^s comin' ! ^^ 

The appeal was fruitless. Massa Rice did not 
hear it, for a happy hit at an unpopular city 
functionary had set the audience in a roar in 
which all other sounds were lost. Waiting some 
moments longer, the restless Cuff, thrusting his 



AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 165 

visage from under cover into full three-quarters 
view this time, again charged upon the singer in 
the same words, but with a more emphatic voice: 
'^Massa Rice, Massa Rice, must have my clo'se! 
Massa Griffif wants me, — steamboat 's comin^!^^ 

A still more successful couplet brought a still 
more tempestuous response, and the invocation 
of the baggage-carrier was unheard and unheeded. 
Driven to desperation, and forgetful in the emer- 
gency of every sense of propriety, Cuff, in ludic- 
rous undress as he was, started from his place, 
rushed upon the stage, and, laying his hand upon 
the performer's shoulder, called out excitedly: 
'^ Massa Rice, Massa Rice, gi' me nigga's hat, — 
nigga's coat, — nigga's shoes, — gi' me nigga's 
things ! Massa Griffif wants 'im, — steamboat 's 
COM in' ! ! '' 

The incident was the touch, in the mirthful 
experience of that night, that passed endurance. 
Pit and circles were one scene of such convulsive 
merriment, that it was impossible to proceed in 
the performance, and the extinguishment of the 
footlights, the fall of the curtain, and the throw- 
ing wide of the doors for exit, indicated that the 
entertainment was ended. 

Such were the circumstances — authentic in 



166 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

every particular — under which the first work of 
the distinct art of Negro Minstrelsy was pre- 
sented. 

Next day found the song of Jim Crow, in one 
style of delivery or another, on everybody's 
tongue. Clerks hummed it serving customers at 
shop counters, artisans thundered it at their toils 
to the time-beat of sledge and of tilt-hammer, 
boys whistled it on the streets, ladies warbled it 
in parlors, and house-maids repeated it to the 
clink of crockery in kitchens. Rice made up 
his mind to profit further by its popularity; 
he determined to publish it. Mr. W. C. 
Peters, afterwards of Cincinnati, and well 
known as a composer and publisher, was at 
that time a music-dealer on Market Street in 
Pittsburg. Rice, ignorant himself of the sim- 
plest elements of musical science, waited upon 
Mr. Peters, and solicited his co-operation in 
the preparation of his song for the press. Some 
difficulty was experienced before Rice could 
be induced to consent to the correction of cer- 
tain trifling informalities, rhythmical mainly, in 
his melody; but, yielding finally, the air as 
it now stands, with a piano-forte accompani- 
ment by Mr. Peters, was put upon paper. 



AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 167 

The manuscript was placed in the hands of Mr. 
John Newton, who reproduced it upon stone with 
an ehiborately embellished title-page, including 
a portrait of the subject of the song, precisely as 
it has been copied through succeeding editions to 
the present time. It was the first specimen of 
lithography ever executed in Pittsburg. 

Jim Crow was repeated nightly throughout the 
season at the theater ; and when that was ended, 
Beale^s Long Room, at the corner of Second and 
Market Streets, was engaged for rehearsals ex- 
clusively in the Ethiopian line. '^Clar de Kitchen" 
soon appeared as a companion piece, speedily fol- 
lowed by ^' Lucy Long,'' " Sich a Gittin' up 
Stairs," '^Long-Tail Blue," and so on, until quite 
a repertoire was at command from which to 
choose for an evening's entertainment. 

Rice remained in Pittsburg some two years. 
He then visited Philadelphia, Boston, and New 
York, whence he sailed for England, where he 
met with high favor in his novel character, mar- 
ried, and remained for some time. He then 
returned to New York, and shortly afterwards 
died. 

With Rice's retirement his art seems to have 
dropped into disuse as a feature of theatrical 



168 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

entertainment, and thenceforward, for many years, 
to have survived only in the performances of 
circuses and menageries. Between acts the ex- 
travaganzaist in cork and wool would appear, and 
to the song of "Coal-Black Rose,'^ or ^^Jira 
along Joe,'^ or ''Sittin' on a Rail," command, 
with the clown and monkey, full share of ad- 
miration in the arena. At first he performed 
solus, and to the accompaniment of the "show" 
band; but the school was progressive; couples 
presently appeared, and, dispensing with the aid 
of foreign instruments, delivered their melodies 
to the more appropriate music of the banjo. To 
the banjo, in a short time, were added the bones. 
The art had now outgrown its infancy, and, dis- 
daining a subordinate existence, boldly seceded 
from the society of harlequin and the tumblers, 
and met the world as an independent institution. 
Singers organized themselves into quartet bands; 
added a fiddle and a tambourine to their instru- 
ments — perhaps we should say implements — of 
music; introduced the hoe-down and the conun- 
drum to fill up the intervals of performance ; 
rented halls, and peregrinating from city to city 
and from town to town went on and prospered. 
One of the oldest companies of this sort was 



AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 169 

organized and sustained under the leadership of 
Nelson Kneass, who, while skillful in his manip- 
ulations of the banjo, was quite an accomplished 
pianist besides, as well as a favorite ballad-singer. 
He had some pretensions as a composer, but has left 
his name identified with no work of any interest. 
His company met with such success in Pittsburg, 
that its visits were repeated from season to season, 
until about the year 1845, when Mr. Murphy, 
the leading caricaturist, determined to resume the 
business in private life which he had laid aside 
on going upon the stage, and the company was 
disbanded. 

Up to this period, if negro minstrelsy had made 
some progress, it was not marked by much im- 
provement. Its charm lay essentially in its sim- 
plicity, and to give it full development, retaining 
unimpaired meanwhile such original excellences 
as Nature in Sambo shapes and inspires, was the 
task of the time. But the task fell into bungling 
hands. The true belongings of the art were mis- 
apprehended or perverted altogether. Its naive 
misconceits were construed into coarse blunders ; 
its pleasing incongruities were resolved into 
meaningless jargon. Gibberish became the staple 
of its composition. Slang phrases and crude jests. 



]70 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

all odds and ends of vulgar sentiment, without 
regard to the idiosyncrasies of the negro, were 
caught up, jumbled together into rhyme, and, 
rendered into the lingo presumed to be genuine, 
were ready for the stage. The wit of the per- 
formance was made to consist in quibble and 
equivoke, and in the misuse of language, after the 
fashion, but without the refinement, of Mrs. Part- 
ington. The character of the music underwent a 
change. Original airs were composed from time 
to time, but the songs were more generally adapta- 
tions of tunes in vogue among Hard-Shell Baptists 
in Tennessee and at Methodist camp-meetings in 
Kentucky, and of backwoods melodies, such as 
had been invented for native ballads by "settle- 
ment'' masters and brought into general circula- 
tion by stage-drivers, wagoners, cattle drovers and 
other such itinerants of earlier days. Music of 
the concert room was also drafted into the service, 
and selections from the inferior operas, with the 
necessary mutilations of the text, of course ; so 
that the whole school of negro minstrelsy threat- 
ened a lapse, when its course of decline was 
suddenly and effectually arrested. 

A certain Mr. Andrews, dealer in confections, 
cakes, and ices, being stirred by a spirit of enter- 



AND NEGEO MINSTRELSY. 171 

prise, rented, in the year 1845, a second-floor hall 
on Wood Street, Pittsburg, supplied it with seats 
and small tables, advertised largely, employed 
cheap attractions, — living statues, songs, dances, 
&c. — erected a stage, hired a piano, and, upon 
the dissolution of his band, engaged the services 
of Nelson Kneass as musician and manager. Ad- 
mittance was free, the ten-cent ticket required at 
the door being received at its first cost value within 
towards the payment of whatever might be called 
for at the tables. To keep alive the interest in 
the enterprise, premiums were offered, from time 
to time, of a bracelet for the best conundrum, a 
ring with a ruby setting for the best comic song, 
and a golden chain for the best sentimental song. 
The most and perhaps only really valuable re- 
ward — a genuine and very pretty silver cup, 
exhibited night after night beforehand — was 
promised to the author of the best original negro 
song, to be presented before a certain date, and to 
be decided upon by a committee designated for 
the purpose by the audience at that time. 

Quite a large array of competitors entered the 
lists ; but the contest would be hardly worthy of 
mention, save as it was the occasion of the first 
appearance of him who was to prove the reformer 



172 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

of his art, and to a sketch of whose career the 
foregoing pages are chiefly preliminary. 

Stephen Collins Foster was born in Alle- 
gheny, Pennsylvania, on the 4th of July, 1826. 
He was the youngest child of his father, William 
B. Foster, — originally a merchant of Pittsburg, 
and afterwards Mayor of his native city, mem- 
ber of the State Legislature, and a Federal officer 
under President Buchanan, with whom he was 
closely connected by marriage. The evidences 
of a musical capacity of no common order were 
apparent in Stephen at an early period. Going 
into a shop, one day, when about seven years 
old, he picked up a flageolet, the first he had 
ever seen, and comprehending, after an experi- 
ment or two, the order of the scale on the instru- 
ment, was able in a few minutes, un instructed, 
to play any of the simple tunes within the octave 
with which he was acquainted. A Thespian 
society, composed of boys in their higher teens, 
was organized in Allegheny, into which Stephen, 
although but in his ninth year, was admitted, 
and of which, from his agreeable rendering of 
the favorite airs of the day, he soon became the 
leading attraction. 

At thirteen years of age he made his first at- 



AND NEGEO MINSTEELSY. 173 

tempt at composition, producing for a public 
occasion at the seminary in Athens, Ohio, where 
he was a student at the time, the '^ Tioga Waltz," 
which, although quite a pretty affair, he never 
thought worthy of preservation. In the same 
year, shortly afterwards, he composed music to a 
song commencing, ^' Sadly to mine heart appeal- 
ing,'^ now embraced in the list of his publications, 
but not brought out until many years later. 

Stephen was a boy of delicate constitution, not 
addicted to the active sports or any of the more 
vigorous habits of boys of his age. His only 
companions were a few intimate friends, and, 
thus secluded, his character naturally took a 
sensitive, meditative cast, and his growing dis- 
relish for severer tasks was confirmed. As has 
been intimated, he entered as a pupil at Athens; 
but as the course of instruction in that institution 
was not in harmony with his tastes, he soon with- 
drew, applying himself afterward to the study of 
the French and German languages (a ready fluency 
in both of which he finally acquired), and es- 
pecially to the art dearer than all other studies. 
A recluse, owning and soliciting no guidance but 
that of his text- book, in the quiet of the woods, 
16 



174 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

or, if that were inaccessible, the retirement of his 
chamber, he devoted himself to this art. 

At the age of sixteen he composed and pub- 
lished the song, "Open thy Lattice, Love," which 
was admired, but did not meet with extraordinary 
success. In the year following he went to Cin- 
cinnati, entering the counting-room of his brother, 
and discharging the duties of his place with faith- 
fulness and ability. His spare hours were still 
devoted, however, to his favorite pursuit, al- 
though his productions were chiefly preserved in 
manuscript, and kept for the private entertain- 
ment of his friends. He continued with his 
brother nearly three years. 

At the time Mr. Andrews of Pittsburg offered 
a silver cup for the best original negro song, Mr. 
Morrison Foster sent to his brother Stephen a 
copy of the advertisement announcing the fact, 
with a letter urging him to become a competitor 
for the prize. These saloon entertainments occu- 
pied a neutral ground, upon which eschewers of 
theatrical delights could meet with the abettors 
of play-house amusements, — a consideration of 
ruling importance in Pittsburg, where so many 
of the sterling population carry with them to this 
day, by legitimate inheritance, the staunch old 



AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 175 

Oameronian fidelity to Presbyterian creed and 
practice. Morrison, believing that these concerts 
would afford an excellent opportunity for the 
genius of his brother to appeal to the public, 
persisted in urging him to compete for the prize, 
until Stephen, who at first expressed a dislike to 
appear under such circumstances, finally yielded, 
and in due time forwarded a melody entitled, 
" 'Way down South whar de Corn grows.'' When 
the eventful night came, the various pieces in 
competition were rendered to the audience by 
Nelson Kneass to his own accompaniment on the 
piano. The audience expressed by their ap- 
plause a decided preference for Stephen's melody ; 
but the committee appointed to sit in judgment 
decided in favor of some one else, himself and 
his song never heard of afterwards, and the 
author of " 'Way down South" forfeited the cup. 
But Mr. Kneass appreciated the merit of the 
composition, and promptly, next morning, made 
application at the proper office for a copyright 
in his own name as author, when Mr. Morrison 
Foster, happening in at the moment, interposed, 
and frustrated the discreditable intention. 

This experiment of Foster's, if it fell short of 
the expectations of his friends, served, notwith- 



176 STEPHEN 0. FOSTER. 

standing, a profitable purpose, for it led him to a 
critical investigation of the school of music to 
which it belonged. This school had been — was 
yet — unquestionably popular. To what, then, 
was it indebted for its captivating points? It 
was to its truth to Nature in her simplest and 
most childlike mood. 

Settled as to theory, Foster applied himself to 
the task of its exemplification. Two attempts 
were made while he yet remained in Cincinnati, 
the pencil-drafts of which, however, were laid 
aside for the time being in his portfolio. His 
shrinking nature held timidly back at the thought 
of a venture before the public; and so the case 
stood until he reappeared in Pittsburg. 

The Presidential campaign of 1844 was distin- 
guished by political song-singing. Clubs for that 
purpose were organized in all the cities and towns 
and hamlets, — clubs for the platform, clubs for 
the street^ clubs for the parlor. Whig clubs, Dem- 
ocratic clubs. Ballads innumerable to airs in- 
definite, new and old, filled the land, — Irish 
ballads, German ballads, Yankee ballads, and, 
preferred over all, negro ballads. So enthusiastic 
grew the popular feeling in this direction, that, 
when the November crisis was come and gone, 



AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 177 

the peculiar institution would not succumb to the 
limitation, but lived on. Partisan temper faded 
out; the fires of strife died down, but clubs sat 
perseveringly in their places, and in sounds, if not 
in sentiment, attuned to the old melodies, kept up 
the practices of the mad and merry time. 

Among other organizations that lingered on was 
one, composed of half a dozen young men, since 
grown into graver habits, with Foster — home 
again, and a link once more in the circle of his 
intimates — at its head. The negro airs were still 
the favorites ; but the collection, from frequent 
repetition, at length began to grow stale. One 
night, as a revival measure for the club, and as an 
opportunity for himself, Foster hinted that, with 
their permission, he would oifer for trial an 
effort of his own. Accordingly he set to work ; 
and at their next meeting laid before them a 
song entitled " Louisiana Belle.'^ The piece 
elicited unanimous applause. Its success in the 
club-room opened to it a wider field, each mem- 
ber acting as an agent of dissemination outside, 
so that in the course of a few nights the song 
was sung in almost every parlor in Pittsburg. 
Foster then brought to light his portfolio speci- 
mens, since universally known as ^^ Uncle Ned,'' 



178 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

and ^'O Susanna!'' The favor with which these 
latter were received surpassed even that reward- 
ing the ^^ Louisiana Belle/' Although limited to 
the one slow process of communication, — from 
mouth to ear, — their fame spread far and wide, 
until from the drawing rooms of Cincinnati 
they were introduced into its concert-halls, and 
there became known to Mr. W. C. Peters, who 
at once addressed letters requesting copies for 
publication. These were cheerfully furnished 
by the author. He did not look for remunera- 
tion. For " Uncle Ned/' which first appeared 
(in 1847), he received none; ^'O Susanna!" soon 
followed, and "imagine my delight," he writes, 
"in receiving one hundred dollars in cash ! 
Though this song was not successful/' he con- 
tinues, " yet the two fifty-dollar bills I received 
for it had the effect of starting me on my present 
vocation of song-writer." In pursuance of this 
decision, he entered into arrangements with new 
publishers, chiefly with Firth, Pond & Co. of 
New York, set himself to work, and began to 
pour out his productions with astonishing rap- 
idity. 

Out of the list, embracing about one hundred 
and fifty of his songs, the most flatteringly re- 



AND NEGKO MINSTRELSY. 179 

ceived among his negro melodies were those 
already enumerated, followed by •" Nelly was a 
Lady/Mn 1849; "My Old Kentucky Home/' 
and "Camptown Races/' in 1850; "Old Folks at 
Home/' in 1851 ; " Massa 's in the Cold Ground/' 
in 1852; "O Boys, carry me 'long/' in 1853; 
" Hard Times come again no more/' in 1854 ; 
" ' Way down South/' and "O Lemuel/' in 1858 ; 
" Old Black Joe/' in 1860; and (noticeable only 
as his last in that line) " Don't bet your Money 
on the Shanghai/' in 1861. 

In all these compositions Foster adheres scrup- 
ulously to his theory adopted at the outset. His 
verses are distinguished by a naivete character- 
istic and appropriate, but consistent at the same 
time with common sense. Enough of the negro 
dialect is retained to preserve distinction, but not 
to offend. The sentiment is given in plain phrase 
and under homely illustration; but it is a senti- 
ment nevertheless. The melodies are of twin 
birth literally with the verses, for Foster thought 
in tune as he traced in rhyme, and traced in 
rhyme as he thought in tune. Of easy modula- 
tion, severely simple in their structure, his airs 
have yet the graceful proportions, animated with 
the fervor, unostentatious but all-subduing, of 



180 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

certain of the old hymns (not the chorals) derived 
from our fathers of a hundred years ago. 

That he had struck upon the true way to the 
common heart, the successes attending his efforts 
surely demonstrate. His songs had an unpar- 
alleled circulation. The commissions accruing 
to the author on the sales of "Old Folks^' alone 
amounted to fifteen thousand dollars. For per- 
mission to have his name printed on its title-page, 
as an advertising scheme, Mr. Christy paid five 
hundred dollars. Applications were unceasing 
from the various publishers of the country for 
some share, at least, of his patronage, and upon 
terms that might have seduced almost any one 
else; but the publishers with whom he originally 
engaged had won his esteem, and Foster adhered 
to them faithfully. Artists of the highest dis- 
tinction favored him with their friendship ; and 
Herz, Sivori, Ole Bull, Thalberg, were alike ready 
to approve his genius, and to testify that approval 
in the choice of his melodies as themes about 
which to weave their witcheries of embellishment. 
Complimentary letters from men of literary note 
poured in upon him ; among others, one full of 
generous encouragement from Washington Irving, 
dearly prized and carefully treasured to the day 



AND NEGRO MINSTEELSY. 181 

of his death. Similar missives reached him 
from across the seas, — from strangers and from 
travelers in lands far remote ; and he learned 
thatj while "O Susanna !^^ was the familiar song 
of the cottager on the Clyde, "Uncle Ned" was 
known to the dwellers in tents among the Pyra- 
mids. 

Of his sentimental songs, "Ah, may the Red 
Rose live alway !" "Maggie by my side,'^ "Jennie 
with the Light-Brown Hair/' "Willie, we have 
missed you,'' " I see her still in my Dreams," 
"Wilt thou be gone, Love" (a duet, the words 
adapted from a well-known scene in Romeo and 
Juliet), and "Come where my Love lies dream- 
ing" (quartet), are among the leading favorites. 
"I see her still in my Dreams" appeared in 
1861, shortly after the death of his mother, and 
is a tribute to the memory of her to whom he was 
devotedly attached. The verses to most of these 
airs^to all the successful ones — were of his own 
composition. Indeed, he could seldom satisfy 
himself in his "settings" of the stanzas of others. 
If the metrical and symmetrical features of the 
lines in hand chanced to disagree with his con- 
ception of the motion and proportion befitting in a 
musical interpretation ; if the sentiment were one 



182 STEPHEN C. FOSTER, 

that failed^ whether from lack of appreciation or 
of sympathy on his part^ to command absolute 
approval ; or if the terms employed were not of 
a precise thread aad tension, — if they were want- 
ing, however minutely, in vibratory qualities, — 
with his own, of commensurate extent would be 
the failure attending the translation. 

The last three years of his life Mr. Foster 
passed in New York. During all that time, his 
efforts, with perhaps one exception, were limited 
to the production of songs of a pensive character. 
The loss of his mother seems to have left an in- 
effaceable impression of melancholy upon his 
mind, and inspired such songs as "I dream 
of my Mother,'' '' I'll be Home To-morrow," 
" Leave me with my Mother," and " Bury me 
in the Morning." He died, after a brief illness, 
on the 13th of January, 1864. His remains 
reached Pittsburg on the 20th, and were con- 
veyed to Trinity Church, where on the day 
following, in the presence of a large assembly, 
appropriate and impressive ceremonies took place, 
the choral services being sustained by a company 
of his former friends and associates. His body 
was then carried to the Allegheny Cemetery, and, 
to the music of "Old Folks at Home," finally 
committed to the grave. 



AND NEGKO MINSTRELSY. 183 

Mr. Foster was married, on the 22d of July, 
1850, to Miss Jane D. McDowell of Pittsburg, 
by whom he had one only child, a daughter 
named Marian. He was of rather less than me- 
dium height, of slight frame, with parts well 
proportioned, and showing to advantage in repose, 
although not entirely so in action. His shoulders 
were marked by a slight droop,— the result of a 
habit of walking with his eyes fixed upon the 
ground a pace or two in advance of his feet. 
He nearly always when he ventured out, which 
was not often, walked alone. Arrived at the 
street-crossings, he would frequently pause, raise 
himself, cast a glance at the surroundiugs, 
and if he saw an acquaintance nod to him in 
token of recognition, and then, relapsing into 
the old posture, resume his way. At such times, 
— indeed, at any time, — while he did not repel, 
he took no pains to invite society. He was 
entertaining in conversation, although a certain 
hesitancy, from want of words and not from any 
organic defect, gave a broken style to his speech. 
For his study he selected the room in the topmost 
story of his house, farthest removed from the street, 
and was careful to have the floor of the apart- 
ment, and the avenues of approach to it, thickly 



184 STEPHEN C. FOSTEB, 

carpeted, to exclude as effectually as possible all 
noises, inside as well as outside of his own prem- 
ises. The furniture of this room consisted of a 
chair, a lounge, a table, a music-rack, and a piano. 
From the sanctum so chosen, seldom opened to 
others, and never allowed upon any pretense to 
be disarranged, came his choicest compositions. 
His disposition was naturally amiable, although, 
from the tax imposed by close application to 
study upon his nervous system, he was liable to 
fits of fretfulness and petulance that, only oc- 
casional and transient as they were, told neverthe- 
less with disturbing effect upon his temper. In 
the same unfortunate direction tended the force of 
a habit grown insidiously upon him, — a habit 
against the damning control of which (as no one 
better than the writer of this article knows) he 
wrestled with an earnestness indescribable, re- 
sorting to all the remedial expedients which 
professional skill or his own experience could 
suggest, but never entirely delivering himself 
from its inexorable mastery. 

In the true estimate of genius, its achievements 
only approximate the highest standard of excel- 
lence as they are representative, or illustrative, of 
important truth. They are only great as they are 



AND NEGRO MINSTRELSY. 185 

good. If Mr. Foster's art embodied no higher 
idea than the vulgar notion of the negro as a man- 
monkey, — a thing of tricks and antics, — a funny 
specimen of superior gorilla, — then it might have 
proved a tolerable catch-penny aifair, and com- 
manded an admiration among boys of various 
growths until its novelty wore off. But the art 
in his hands teemed with a nobler significance. 
It dealt, in its simplicity, with universal sym- 
pathies, and taught us all to feel with the slaves 
the lowly joys and sorrows it celebrated. 

May the time be far in the future ere lips fail 
to move to its music, or hearts to respond to its 
influence, and may we who owe him so much 
preserve gratefully the memory of the master, 
Stephen Collins Fostek. 



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